1882 History
Chapter 14 – City of Litchfield, continued
INCREASE OF POPULATION — EARLY POLITICS — POLITICIANS AND POLITICAL QUESTIONS — THE JOURNALS — DOUGLAS AND LINCOLN— INCORPORATION OF LITCHFIELD AS A CITY — THE FIRST MAYOR — SOME OF THE LATER BUSINESS MEN — PHYSICIANS — PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF I860 AND ITS RESULTS— THE CITY DURING THE WAR — FIRES — REMOVAL OF RAILROAD SHOPS — RECAPITULATION, ETC.
By H. A. Coolidge
"Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out."
— Richter.
BY the beginning of 1858, the population of Litchfield might have been a
thousand, nearly all drawn hither from a distance. They were poor, if
reckoned by material standards, but young, earnest, pushing, resolute, and
able and willing to make favorable circumstances if they could not find
them. Their true power and wealth lay in their capacity to work and their
skill in their callings, and their readiness to multiply themselves by doing
so many unlike things well. They had to succeed. The population was a busy
one, and splendidly in earnest. Somehow they tore their way upward. The same
man was in the course of the day a coal dealer, superintendent of the
foundry, melting three tons at a heat; ran a corn-mill, carrying the corn in
the ear on his back to the second story, shelling it and sifting the meal by
hand, sacking it for shipment; keeping the books of the firm, taking the
time of the workmen, attending to the correspondence, and in the intervals
doing the "chores" around the establishment.
Everybody, not a railroad man, talked politics, if not with wide knowledge,
yet with zeal and earnestness. The Democratic headquarters were at
O'Bannon's store, and there on rainy days as well at sundry other times were
gathered Thomas C. Hughes, Elihu Boan, Stephen R. Briggs, Israel Fogleman,
John A. Crabtree, with "Uncle Dick" as Moderator, smoking amicable pipes and
turning over their oft-expressed opinions as to the issues then prominent in
Kansas. All these had been born and reared in slave States, and cherished
the views peculiar to the South.
They believed as their party believed, and small forbearance had they for
any one who uttered to-day what the party would not utter until to-morrow.
Next to being an Abolitionist, was the effrontery of believing anything
until the party believed it, unless he was in Congress or had owned a
"nigger." It was all the force of habit, and an endless diversion.
The Republicans were few but conspicuous. Andrew Miller, H. H. Hood, D. C.
Amsden, W. S. Palmer and H. H. Beach could not be overlooked in any
community. They held caucuses, voted a straight ticket, and were uniformly
beaten. Mr. Miller was suspected of being a train dispatcher on the
Underground Railroad. Dr. Hood alone was an Abolitionist, and it was no
festive thing to be an Abolitionist where one of your neighbors had been one
of the hunters of fugitive slaves for the lowest motive men dare to
acknowledge, and which if good, will excuse Arnold's meditated betrayal of
West Point. Politics or self love had no little to do with a condition of
things which ultimately was no disadvantage. For twenty years the town had
only forlorn friends beyond its own limits. There was a unanimous
discrimination against its citizens in business and matters political, and
for a quarter of a century, though Litchfield contained one-fifth the
population, it saw but one of its citizens elevated to a county office. The
noble consequence was that no one here was spoiled or made a bench loafer by
seeking or holding an office.
In April, 1857, was begun the publication of the Litchfield Journal. The
office was brought hither from Central New York, on representations and
assurances which were coolly repudiated when they had served their purpose.
The paper had a small circulation and little other patronage. The publisher
did not grow quickly rich, and seven years afterward he sold out and turned
his attention to other things. He was so poor that no one would give him
credit. He thus kept out of debt, though his subscribers did not, and the
statute of limitation long since restored his books to white paper, or
something even less valuable.
The spring of 1858 was phenomenal for mud and bad roads. Even good
intentions will not pave a prairie road in March. The cars ran ricocheting
along the iron rails, and the rain fell dense day after day. Farm work was
delayed. In January the highways were hard and dusty, and many a plow was
stirring. The frostless nights ushered in delicious days, and winter was
side-tracked up North. February brought a change, and it was long ere we saw
hard ground or a clear or warm day. Not a few improved the weather by
falling ill, and potion glasses were a relief from the drip and mud. We
learned in the schools which fools patronize, the mysteries of a Western
winter. During the summer the car shop and the paint shop were built, the
Montgomery House enlarged, and the railroad continued its monthly issues of
scrip in jocular payment of its employes. The Linder Brothers gave up
business; Cummings & Son failed to meet their engagements; Henderson, Hull
and Hawkins were embarrassed, and E. E. Litchfield owed more than he could
pay. E. W. Litchfield built Empire Hall, and a brass band was formed. Our
sorrows came not alone, but in battalions. Senator Douglas, whose official
term was about to expire, was a candidate for re-election. A chasm had
opened between him and his party. Illinois had gone Republican at the State
election two years before, and he could hope for no aid from the National
Administration, and had grounds for anticipating its hostility, whether
covert or open. On the Legislature to be chosen in the fall depended his
hopes, and if he would not fail, he deemed it essential that he should make
a popular canvass. The central counties were the debatable region, and on
their political complexion rested the prospect of success. Mi-. Lincoln, the
Republican candidate opposed to him, gained the initiative before his return
from Washington. And soon after Douglas began his popular efforts, the terms
of the famous forensic contest between them were settled. Their joint debate
reduced to the plainness of axioms the pending issues in the irrepressible
conflict. Trumbull also entered the canvass, and in an address at Chicago,
spoke of cramming the lie down Douglas' throat. Douglas' readiness and
anxiety to meet his accuser on the hustings for a reply to this insult was
well understood. The day that Trumbull spoke here, Douglas had an
appointment at Gillespie. John M. Palmer was announced to follow Trumbull in
the evening, from the Republican stand at the southwest corner of the public
square. Several Democrats visited Gillespie to invite Douglas here to speak
in the evening. A rude stand was improvised against the north side of Empire
Hall, where there was an open space about fifty feet by one hundred, thickly
strewn with brick-bats. Douglas came, and proclamation was made that he
would speak. When the hour came, no one was at the Republican stand, and
several hundred persons were at the other one. Trumbull was not in the
crowd, but a few rods away, where he could hear. Douglas knowing this,
replied to the boast made in Chicago: his remarks were not reported, but it
would be a charity to pretend that his language was parliamentary. It was
vigorous, and uttered with a fiery vehemence and passion which manifested
its earnestness. When he concluded, the Democrats shouted for Dick Merrick,
who accompanied Douglas. The Republicans yelled for Palmer. The former
claimed the stand; the latter clamored for fair play. They wanted Douglas to
draw a crowd for their side. The shouting went on. If there was a lull, it
was only to take breath. The brick-bats were suggestive. Some of the people
laughed at the confusion, and some grew red in the face with anger or
excitement. Finally, Judge Weir mounted the stand, and in a few sentences
brought the meeting to a close. The Republicans admitted the provocation
under which Douglas spoke, and the boisterous display of feeling when he sat
down, led to no serious results. A few days later was election, and the
total vote of the Litchfield Precinct, and the 359 majority for the Douglas
candidates for the Legislature, were so unexpected that the legality of the
vote was questioned at Springfield in an unofficial way, and the suspicion
was removed only by the aggregate of the city election the following spring.
During the year the removal of John P. Bayless, Postmaster, was attempted on
a charge of virtual Abolitionism. Had the allegation been sustained, his
official sin would have been unpardonable. He was invited to reply to the
charge, which he accomplished to the satisfaction of the Department, and he
was not again molested in his office until Lincoln was seated in the White
House.
The village organization had been dissolved, and in November a special
charter was drafted, for presentation to the Legislature about to convene
for the incorporation of the town as city. At a series of public meetings
this draft was submitted to the citizens, and, being approved, B. M. Munn
went to the capital to urge its passage. On the 19th of February, 1859, it
became a law, and at the first election under it, in April, W. E. Bacon was
chosen Mayor, and C. W. Ward City Clerk, and James Kellogg Street
Commissioner. The next year Mr. Bacon was re-elected.
The new city had an onerous task. An entire code of ordinances was to be
framed and adopted, and public opinion to be educated to the knowledge and
obedience to wholesome municipal regulations. The Council served with no
compensation. The City Clerk received $60 a year; all other officers
accepted their fees in full of salaries, and sidewalks were laid at the
expense of real estate thus improved. The first year a tax of $2,200 was
levied for schools and municipal purposes, and at the close of the year the
Treasury contained a few hundred dollars to the credit of the next twelve
months.
The first stage of the transition period had been reached. The business
fever of the day when people wore daily arriving with their little
accumulations to buy or build homes, was passing, and the hope of the people
lay in their daily wages and employments here. Corn in the fall of 1859 sold
at 10 cents a bushel, and the railroad continued its payment of "scrip,"
which was worthless in the city market. Debt was universal; but as frost
pulverizes the earth for a future crop, so adversity prepared the people for
a sounder prosperity. The class of adventurers, the Jeremy Diddlers, was
weeded out. The men who could not pay and would not work, drifted to other
places.
A telegraph line had been built, and George H. Smith appointed operator. An
effort to secure the location of the County Fair was unsuccessful, through a
dishonesty not to be extenuated. The commercial influence of the town was
rapidly fostering political importance. A big Democratic majority in
Litchfield was something bound to be respected, especially as the party was
run by men who three years before were Henry Clay Whigs, and a fervent class
not to be moderate in views or zeal.
In 1859, E. Southworth, wearied of failure to gain a livelihood on a farm
where some calamity robbed him each year of the expected fruits of his
labor, and judging the future by the past, came to the city to become a
lawyer. He had crossed the plains on foot to be. a miner in California; had
taught school and tried farming. Here he read law fifteen hours a day. He
preserved the honesty of common life, and circumstances bowed down to his
energy. He was an officer at the beginning of the war; has served as
Alderman and Mayor, and been State Senator. He rose to the leading position
at the city bar, and looks for promotion.
William A. Holmes, formerly of Morrisville, N. Y., but later of Platteville,
Wis.,caine here about the same date, in the vain hope that the milder
climate of Central Illinois would stay, if not heal, the pulmonary disease
of his invalid wife. A man of social tastes, of warm sensibility, and ardent
affections, he never rallied after her death a year after his arrival. For a
time he sought legal business, but though a dozen years before distinguished
by forensic ability, he shunned the court room and became distinctively an
office lawyer, and confined himself to the preparation of court business. In
the suspension of litigation which accompanied the war, he failed to improve
his fortunes, and sought to dispel the gloom in which his days were shrouded
by irregular indulgences. He died on that terrible New Year's day of 1864,
in the absence of the early friend who alone here knew the secret of his
earlier life, and had been glad and proud of his friendship. By temperament
born to suffer, and in his pride strong to keep silence, he lost no friend
and made no enemy.
Messrs. D. and O. Quick came here in 1860, and remained but a few months.
They did not distinguish themselves at the bar. Litigation was of the
simpler kind and afforded but small opportunity for lawyers. Hugh Colton, a
young Irishman, needed toning down. He was impulsive, and had not learned
that an orator at the bar succeeds quite as surely by being a profound
lawyer as by his rhetoric. His stay here was not a long one.
George L. Zink passed from a lawyer's office in Steubenville, Ohio, to a
pedagogue's chair in Gillespie, and in 1865, came here to begin the practice
of his profession, bringing his political principles from the sanguinary
field of Perryville. He had the legal cast of mind, was a hard student and a
forcible speaker. When he became associated with E. McWilliams, he entered
at once on a lucrative practice. Subsequently, he was a member of the legal
firm of Southworth & Zink, and on its dissolution opened an office in his
own rooms. In 1868, he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention,
and four years later went into the Greeley party, and in 1878 was sent by
the Democrats to the Legislature.
Robert McWilliams flitted from Shelbyville to Hillsboro, when J. M. Davis
was most intolerant of the presence of a second lawyer in the county.
Whether from constitution or abstemiousness, the plan of drinking him out of
the county was a failure, and McWilliams had clients and success in the
courts. He was a Republican, and the time came when he re-enforced his
exhortations by enlisting and raising a company and going into the field. At
his own request, he was relieved from service just prior to the battle of
Nashville; but his Irish temperament would not let him come home until he
fought through that decisive affair. About 1866, he removed to Litchfield,
and asserted himself at the bar, in real estate operations and politics. He
has just closed a term as a member of the Legislature, and the charity of
the reader will not deem this much of a stain on a lawyer. Somebody must go
to the Legislature and be misreported.
George A. Talley, who completed his legal studies in McWilliams' office, and
on his admission to the bar became his partner, remained a few years, and
then removed to Chicago. Though young in his profession, he had earned a
high reputation for honesty and thoroughness. He had the aptitude of a
student. He learned to know before deciding or giving opinions. He knew the
law that others knew, and much that they did not. He cherished an honest
judgment, and his departure was sincerely regretted.
There is an inevitable meanness in every grand event, and homeliness of
detail in each heroic life which time does not wholly erase. We go a
thousand miles away to get the mountain's height, and we are too near the
men and things of which we write. The present tense is the fit one for our
task. A fine ear would still detect the echoes of the first hammer strokes
in the town. The writer was a part of what he writes, and as the sentences
grow, the events return in their freshness, and he is moved by his
recollections as he was moved by the events themselves, and he cannot
compose a history of the city on perspective, and, like a Chinese
draughtsman, leave the background and shadow out. Any one can be wise for
yesterday, for he has results to guide his judgment. But Litchfield scarcely
has a yesterday. Its history still retains the morning freshness of to-day.
The incidents of its first years are as freely canvassed as those of the
present. Each feeling and prejudice has been mused to keep it warm.
Dr. Gamble was the first physician. He dwelt in a log cabin half floored, a
couple of blocks west of the Methodist Church, and left but a faint record.
H. H. Hood transferred his office from Hardinsburg to Litchfield in the
summer of 1854. A man of decided opinions, active, persistent and
inflexible, he is familiarly known to all. Dr. John Grinsted came in 1856,
from Woodburn, and, opening a drug store, practiced as a physician until
advancing years compelled his retirement. In 1857, Drs. Strafford and Speers
located here from St. Louis. Speers sojourned but a short time, but Dr.
Stafford, much reduced in health, remains here. He never gained the position
to which, by his skill, he might properly have aspired. Dr. Ash was here a
year or two, but the field was too unpromising, and he removed to Brighton.
Dr. John Skillman, from Alton, sought employment here, and then returned to
Alton, but came back to die. His history is comprised in his Alton life.
Dr. R. F. Bennett located here in 1862, and has gained a large practice, and
possesses a modest fortune. He has been twice Mayor, and twice an Alderman.
Of Dr. Neff it is proper to say that he is better remembered for his
financial transactions than for his professional successes. Dr. Colt, forced
by the failure of his health from service in the gunboat fleet, came here in
18(33, and has reached an enviable rank in his profession. He loves the
science of medicine, and the rod and gun, when he can steal a day with them.
Dr. Backwelder went with Sherman to the sea, and finally settled here, and
has a large list of patients Dr. Clearwater was for many years the country
physician. His practice was enormous, and his fees would have been large had
he exacted them. His reputation is built on his success in healing his
patients. Dr. James, after serving in Price's army, came here. He lost his
health, tried farming, and went to Virginia to die, but regained his health,
and now attends to professional duties. Dr. Leach was the first
homeopathist, and since his removal, ten or twelve years ago, has not been
seen here.
Early in the "sixties," Ben Davis, the "snapping doctor," made semi-monthly
visits. His audience room in the Cummings Building contained several
backless benches, on which were seated a score or two of patients, as grave
and silent and patient as "mourners" at a religious assembly. Davis
circulated about the apartment, snapping his fingers like castanets, and
professing to heal diseases by occult magnetic influences imparted from
himself. The cures did not follow. His visits have been nearly forgotten,
and the burly Ben is dimly remembered.
Only by an effort can the names of several other physicians who tarried here
be recalled.
In the long, honorable list but three names have fallen to the ground. Drs.
Alexander, Skillman and Grinsted have died. It is the best evidence of their
worth and skill that, with the increase of population, the bills of
mortality in 1881 were but little larger than in 1857, with only one-eighth
of the present population.
In 1860, Litchfield was a microcosm. Not a speech at Washington, not an
editorial by Greeley or Medary, or an utterance of the Charleston Courier,
which was not re-echoed here. Not a general interest could be touched and
not affect some business here. Politics was a study for each one. Supreme
attention was paid to the presidential canvass, and there was much whistling
to keep up a show of courage and hopefulness. Lincoln was elected, and the
outlook was toward clouds and darkness. All classes here desired peace, and
petitioned for the passage of the Crittenden resolutions.
For some reason as inscrutable as a prize conundrum, a delegate Democratic
State Convention was called to meet at Springfield to deliberate on public
affairs and offer suggestions. A county convention was accordingly held to
appoint delegates. The writer drafted and presented resolutions to the
effect that as the Republicans already were in power in the State, and were
about to go into power in the nation, and, therefore, would be responsible
for the administration of public affairs, it would be time enough for
Democrats to give advice when it was asked for; as the Democratic party when
in power had not averted the present danger, it was not clear how any advice
they could give would now meet it; and hence the county should send no
delegates to the proposed State Convention. Every member save Jesse M.
Phillips and B. M. Munn, was in favor of peace and a peaceful policy. Those
two gentlemen breathed war and battle. The resolutions were adopted and
fully met the views of the people — a fact whose significance became
apparent within a few years.
The Peace Congress was held, and accomplished nothing it was convened to
accomplish, and much that was not anticipated.
Wrongs it might have redressed, but it could not change the fixed purpose of
the South, which, by dividing the party, had caused the election of Lincoln,
and then plead the consequences of its own act as a pretext for the
consummation of a policy pursued for years. The Southern members of that
Congress did not seek means of pacification. Their solicitude was to learn
if the Yankees would fight. The answer covered more than the question. We
quote the verbal version of it. as told by a member of the body:
"If, on a summer morning, in the season, you visit the wharf of any of the
little seaports near Boston, you will see many little undecked boats newly
arrived from the fishing-ground with their night's catch. The owners are
marine farmers. They gain their livelihood by fishing. The sea and their
boats are their patrimony. Enter into conversation with the fisherman who is
tossing his catch on the wharf. Dispute his assertions; call him a liar.
'Mister, I can prove what I say.' Spit in his face, and, as he wipes off the
saliva with his brown arm, he will reply: 'Mister, look out!' Abuse his
State, and 'Mister, my State supplies your shoes, your clothes and your
markets.' You cannot anger him or provoke him to a breach of the peace. You
conclude he has no spirit. But touch one of his fish, and in a moment he'll
thrash you within an inch of your life. The Southerner stood on the
principle of personal honor, a shadowy thing, while the Northerner stood by
the rights of property.
The one was a chimera; the other is the foundation of States and the AEgis
of civilization. The news of the attack and capture of Fort Sumter was known
here dimly on Sunday afternoon. The next morning the daily papers brought
the details, and the humiliation of the policy which would not believe or
act. A call was at once made for a public meeting in the evening. Empire
Hall was packed, and R. W. O'Bannon presided. Several brief, pointed
speeches were made. The sentiment was that as war had actually begun, force
must be met with force, National supremacy be maintained, National property
protected, and the Union preserved. The hour for debate had gone by. Action
was the alternative, and forty persons that evening enlisted to tender their
services to the General Government. In two days more the ranks were filled,
and on the third day the company departed for Camp Yates, at Springfield, to
be mustered into service in the first regiment raised in the war.
By association and early residence, this region was friendly to the South.
But her conduct startled the people to a comparison of the claims of duty
against the glamour of sentiment. Everybody lost his feet, and bowed to the
whirlwind of feeling in behalf of the Union. At a later day, a lower set of
principles came into prominence, and men gave to party what belonged to the
country.
The history of the city during the war belongs in part to a distinct
chapter. But as the value of slavery as a preponderating sectional issue
flung off disguises which misled no one who did not wish to be misled, and
its disappearance, by changing public policy, consigned a proud party to
disaster and a minimum of influence, a changed attitude was assumed by not a
few. A lodge of the Golden Circle met in the city. Men met by moonlight for
military drill. Speeches were made on the main streets, exhorting the people
to resist the draft. Men left the station for Ohio to vote for Vallandigham.
Others departed for Chicago to co-operate in St. Leger's conspiracy to
capture Camp Douglass. Refugees from Slave States led furtive lives here,
and used a freedom of speech not permitted at home. The war was denounced,
because in camp the "Democrat boys" became Republicans. Both the Democratic
papers in the county were conducted by war-Democrats, and the elements of
hostility to the war lacked coherence for want of leadership and public
expression. About this time one B. F. Burnett came to town to gain a
livelihood by soliciting legal business. His success as a lawyer was not
great, but he prated dolorously of the misery of war, the sorrow it brought
to uncounted families, and the blessings of peace. He knew some law, and
might have been a reputable citizen if he had not. He became a nucleus for
disloyal manifestations — a fit office for a loose-tongued scoundrel. Secret
organization provoked a rival organization, and in the spring of 1863, a
Union League Lodge was established here, meeting in the engine house of the
car shops. The League decided to seek control of the city government, and
all the measures were quietly made. A messenger was sent on Sunday to Alton
to procure ballots, and the printer was taken from church to provide them.
The messenger could not return until nearly noon of election day. The
Democrats were ignorant of what was devised, and only themselves attended
the polls, and few ballots were offered. The Republicans seemed to have lost
their interest in civil affairs. The train came in from the west, and with
electric quickness the ballots were distributed, and by evening were in the
ballot boxes. The result indicated that about half of them had been
deposited by former Democrats, and the League ticket had a tremendous
majority. The Democrats were dumb with amazement, and the Leaguers,
delighted by their success, celebrated the result in a manner which left
headaches the next morning. The astounding change in public sentiment was
not fruitless. Numerous volunteer associations arose to aid the Sanitary
Commission, and in various ways to remember the boys in blue. But here, as
in all popular effervescences, the worst elements came uppermost. Efforts
were made to hurry the League into measures to gratify personal malignancy,
and they were promptly discountenanced and their authors vanished. Rumor
magnified the strength and purposes of the League. About the county,
measures were concerted for forcible resistance to a draft. A military
organization was maintained for the purpose. But it was known that boxes of
Ballard rifles had been procured by the Leaguers to preserve the peace and
the supremacy of the law. Bounty- jumpers skulked along the streets.
An emissary of the Golden Circle paid a visit to a Leaguer who was his
personal friend. He said that he had heard that 5,000 stand of arms were in
Litchfield. His friend gave an ambiguous assent. He exhibited to him a
Ballard rifle as a sample of half the weapons, and then producing a Henry
rifle, or a sixteen shooter, affirmed the second half of the arms were of
that pattern. What report was made to the Circle has not been made public,
but there was no longer danger that Litchfield would be molested, or the
draft resisted.
The town was startled by fires, clearly the result of gross carelessness or
incendiarism, and there was a disposition to connect them with political
troubles. That pretence was speedily abandoned The disappearance of specie
as a circulating medium, the depreciation of greenbacks, and the
augmentation of the paper currency, inflamed prices and the city rushed into
public improvements. Taxes went up like a rocket. A city hall was built, a
schoolhouse was built, and the money was in good part borrowed at 15 per
cent. The city was drunk on the excellence of its credit. Population rose to
4,300; wheat was $3.50, and corn 95 cents a bushel; sugar, four pounds for
$1; muslin, 40 cents a yard, and flour $19 per barrel. Those were good
times, but they did not last. The people went wild on railroads. The sum of
$50,000 was voted to the stock of a railroad west to Louisiana, Mo.; the
same amount to the St. Louis division of the Wabash, and $75,000 to the
Springfield & St. Louis road. Fortunately, only the second one was built,
and the other subscriptions lapsed. The town gradually adapted itself to the
changed conditions prevailing since the war. Population had fallen ofl', the
decadence of prices was established, and the Granger element was about to
begin its by-play.
The removal of the railroad shops was completed in 1871, and the leading
market for labor was closed. The spacious shops stood silent and tenantless.
The city's opportunity had come; difficulty was but a goad to spur it on.
Several parties here organized a company to lease the shops for the
manufacture of rolling-stock for railways. The stock was eagerly taken, and
in 1872 the fires were lighted and the machinery set in motion. The new
enterprise soon disclosed that it would do more for the city than railroad
shops had done. But within two years a series of fires, not all accidental,
perhaps, had raged on State street. The schoolhouse, the pride of the
community, had gone down in flame and ruin, and now a conflagration burst
forth in the car works. Fortunately, most of the works were saved, but the
loss of property and time was still serious. The town was brought face to
face with the imperative want of water for industrial and fire purposes.
It is proper to be specific by way of recapitulation. In April, 1867, a fire
kindled in the rear of the hardware store near the southwest angle of the
public square, had humbled to ashes three stores and most of their contents,
bringing financial ruin to two of the owners, and causing a total loss of
$25,000.
Fires mysteriously appeared in the rear of other business houses, and were
discovered in season to avoid damage. In the fall of 1871, the alarm of fire
again startled the town. A crown of flame rested on the Journal building,
and the rear rooms glowed with the yellow radiance of a fire fed by dry
pine. Five buildings crumbled to blackness in a couple of hours, and the
losses were not light to bear. A year or two later, fire bells summoned the
people to witness the conflagration of six business places, from the
O'Bannon corner north on State street. The Criterion Mill, in the early
morning, went down in smoke and flame, and the Gage Mill on a Sunday
afternoon lay under a pillar of smoke. Pale flames traveled through the
interior. The blaze broke white through the roof, and for a few moments the
people forgot the disaster in the presence of the magnificent spectacle. In
1873, the car works had their baptism of fire. Brick walls and earnest labor
checked the flames when their fury was but half glutted. All these fires,
most of them compressed into two years, had touched only individuals, and
any philosopher can maintain his equanimity in the presence of his
neighbor's calamity. The vagueness of each one's personal interest in the
general welfare, and it is only personal interest which moves the common
mind, provoked only unsubstantial regrets. The losses did not directly touch
the purses of the many. In whatever the public undertakes, it is seldom
indifferent to its own advantage. It was so in Litchfield. But this
complacency at the prevalence of fires was rudely shattered. The spacious
schoolhouse, overlooking the city, and in its designs and proportions as
beautiful as a poem, was the pride and the object of the personal affection
of every citizen. For several days the teachers and their 800 pupils had
been choking with the acrid odor of smoldering wood. Like a gangrene, the
perfume clung to the rooms. No smoke was seen, no fire discovered. A
superficial survey detected no cause for the poison which had insinuated
itself throughout the building. It was a Monday evening, about 6:30. A young
married woman lay dying in the neighborhood. A lambent flame was seen
quivering on the roof near the south chimney. Black smoke crowned the
summit. Pale tongues of fire lapped at the woodwork. All the city rushed to
the school grounds. The house burned like a flambeau. Nothing could be done
to stop its destruction, and the people stood in speechless sorrow and saw
the tire crawl downward from floor to floor, and expire in the cellar for
want of fuel. Each one knew the tire brought financial loss to him, and that
with proper water-works $40,000 would have been saved the city.
The frequent recurring fires, and the extent of the losses, gave emphasis to
a desire for protection from further losses of a similar character.
Protection was better and cheaper than insurance. There was forced or
hurried eagerness to meet this general demand. Various schemes were
considered. The cost of providing cisterns and a fire engine was computed,
and the annual outlay of the system was found to be 10 per cent on the cost
of a different system which would afford greater protection, and in addition
produce a revenue from its value to shops, mills and households. In 1873,
the car works brought water here by railroad. Best & Sparks paid $1,000 to
teams to draw water four miles to their mill. The desirability of a water
supply was not questioned, and there was a unanimous desire to fling a
strong dike across Long Branch, a mile south of the city, and from the
capacious reservoir thus created, send water into the heart of the town,
under conditions which would meet our varied requirements.
The sort of works demanded was in substance the Holly system, or the system
of direct pressure on the mains equal to the maintenance of a column of
water 400 feet high, and through 100 feet of hose would project a stream
upward of 100 feet into the air. Estimates of the cost of such a system were
made to include only the dike, the mains and the pumping machinery, and this
estimate was promulgated as a fair statement by experts of the cost of the
waterworks. We make no excuse for the error in simple multiplication, which
affected the cost of the dike 100 per cent. We have no comment on the
suppression in the exhibit submitted to the citizens of numerous expensive
items of cost, which, in the aggregate, were truly formidable. The facts
speak for themselves. A few citizens knew the water-works could not be built
within $25,000 of the explained estimates, and their voices were overruled
and they reduced to silence. They would, at the proper hour, have appealed
to the courts to prohibit the issue of bonds by alleging a want of power to
legalize them. They could not be blind to the mendacity or want of
rudimentary capacity to make simple calculations on the part of those who
held that it was none of the tax payers' business how they run things.
Again, it was a matter of law against expediency, as if it can be expedient
to do wrong.
People are easily deceived when they want to be deceived. There was no
uncertainty as to the value of water-works, none as to the ability of the
city to build them, but there was a broad, explicit prohibition of law
against going into debt beyond 5 per cent of the last assessed valuation of
property, and our municipal debt was at that time within $12,000 of that
limit. But the debt was in great part nominal, and not virtual. Since the
completion of the Wabash road, in aid of which the debt was created, the
assessed valuation of property had increased $800,000, and by the Railroad
Aid Law, the State taxes on that amount were appropriated to paying the
debt. This tax met annual interest, and left an excess of several thousand
dollars as a sinking fund which would quite extinguish the principal at
maturity. It was this law which alone induced the city to issue $50,000 in
bonds to secure the road. The bonds were against the city, but the State
agreed to pay them. This debt then was treated as virtually canceled, and
taking this view, and listening to the vehement assurances of men in power
that the water works completed could not cost more than $42,000, or by
adopting the higher plan, $55,000, and there was no intention of doing this,
the citizens in various ways expressed their enthusiastic approval of the
project at an extreme cost of $45,000.
This was the plan approved by the community, under the knowledge that the
operation of the Railroad Aid Law released them from liability for the bonds
granted to a railroad.
True, in letter, they were bound; but in fact, the debt was to be paid not
at their charges. But when, after expending nearly $20,000 on the ground
alike and facing walls, the authorities ordered the preparation of bonds for
$50,000 additional, framed so as to give full effect to the legal inhibition
against their issue, and so as to give the city ground to content their
payment, because issued in violation of law; and the omission in the recital
which was to do this was passed over in silence — the thing became too
flagrant. Yet at home complaints came too late. Nothing could be done to
stop the authorities, and soon there was a wide suspicion that private
objects were sought under guise of zeal for public ends. The works were
completed by contract, and as well and economically as the public is usually
served by contractors. The work was done when labor and material were
one-fourth dearer than two or three years later, when by comparison with the
reduced prices, men, having their own aggrandizement only in view, bellowed
about the town vague accusations of fraud and veritable peculation.
Not one of these fellows could be induced to make and stand to a single
specific charge. They proved their statement by numberless repetitions — a
sort of evidence better for a certain class than positive proof.
The works cost $77,000 against the $45,000 they were to have been built for.
But they stand, and have not in eight years failed in their duty for an
hour. They are worth all they cost, and more, and the clamor about them
which had no higher origin than a personal difference about matters
disconnected with public affairs, would have died away had it not been kept
alive by the city's repudiation of her bonds. Noisy advocates for the works
refused to pay taxes to meet any part of the indebtedness, and the Council,
by resolution, refused the payment of interest. Suit was instituted, and in
the court of last resort a decision was obtained that the issue of the bonds
was illegal. The vast majority of the citizens desire their payment, and the
decision defeats their wishes.
This narrative of our shame had not been written or been true, had not the
opinion crept into officers that their delegated powers were a franchise to
be exercised according to their caprice. They forgot their representative
position, and spurned conference or opinions from a tax payer. They never
forgot self, and no offense was so great as the assertion that the people
had any rights not vested in them.
In 1870, the population had fallen below three thousand seven hundred. The
variance in population is the exact criterion of the industries of the town.
In 1880, the total was reported at 4,343, and this was known to be too
small. In 1881, the Jacksonville road had been extended to the city, a
second coal shaft had been opened, oil had been found, the Planet Mill was
in course of construction, the car works were over-crowded with work, and
100 buildings were erected, as the population had risen to 5,250, and the
city had again rehearsed the old lesson that the people are the city, and
that their future would be what they willed it to be.
BY the beginning of 1858, the population of Litchfield might have been a thousand, nearly all drawn hither from a distance. They were poor, if reckoned by material standards, but young, earnest, pushing, resolute, and able and willing to make favorable circumstances if they could not find them. Their true power and wealth lay in their capacity to work and their skill in their callings, and their readiness to multiply themselves by doing so many unlike things well. They had to succeed. The population was a busy one, and splendidly in earnest. Somehow they tore their way upward. The same man was in the course of the day a coal dealer, superintendent of the foundry, melting three tons at a heat; ran a corn-mill, carrying the corn in the ear on his back to the second story, shelling it and sifting the meal by hand, sacking it for shipment; keeping the books of the firm, taking the time of the workmen, attending to the correspondence, and in the intervals doing the "chores" around the establishment.
Everybody, not a railroad man, talked politics, if not with wide knowledge, yet with zeal and earnestness. The Democratic headquarters were at O'Bannon's store, and there on rainy days as well at sundry other times were gathered Thomas C. Hughes, Elihu Boan, Stephen R. Briggs, Israel Fogleman, John A. Crabtree, with "Uncle Dick" as Moderator, smoking amicable pipes and turning over their oft-expressed opinions as to the issues then prominent in Kansas. All these had been born and reared in slave States, and cherished the views peculiar to the South.
They believed as their party believed, and small forbearance had they for any one who uttered to-day what the party would not utter until to-morrow. Next to being an Abolitionist, was the effrontery of believing anything until the party believed it, unless he was in Congress or had owned a "nigger." It was all the force of habit, and an endless diversion.
The Republicans were few but conspicuous. Andrew Miller, H. H. Hood, D. C. Amsden, W. S. Palmer and H. H. Beach could not be overlooked in any community. They held caucuses, voted a straight ticket, and were uniformly beaten. Mr. Miller was suspected of being a train dispatcher on the Underground Railroad. Dr. Hood alone was an Abolitionist, and it was no festive thing to be an Abolitionist where one of your neighbors had been one of the hunters of fugitive slaves for the lowest motive men dare to acknowledge, and which if good, will excuse Arnold's meditated betrayal of West Point. Politics or self love had no little to do with a condition of things which ultimately was no disadvantage. For twenty years the town had only forlorn friends beyond its own limits. There was a unanimous discrimination against its citizens in business and matters political, and for a quarter of a century, though Litchfield contained one-fifth the population, it saw but one of its citizens elevated to a county office. The noble consequence was that no one here was spoiled or made a bench loafer by seeking or holding an office.
In April, 1857, was begun the publication of the Litchfield Journal. The office was brought hither from Central New York, on representations and assurances which were coolly repudiated when they had served their purpose. The paper had a small circulation and little other patronage. The publisher did not grow quickly rich, and seven years afterward he sold out and turned his attention to other things. He was so poor that no one would give him credit. He thus kept out of debt, though his subscribers did not, and the statute of limitation long since restored his books to white paper, or something even less valuable.
The spring of 1858 was phenomenal for mud and bad roads. Even good intentions will not pave a prairie road in March. The cars ran ricocheting along the iron rails, and the rain fell dense day after day. Farm work was delayed. In January the highways were hard and dusty, and many a plow was stirring. The frostless nights ushered in delicious days, and winter was side-tracked up North. February brought a change, and it was long ere we saw hard ground or a clear or warm day. Not a few improved the weather by falling ill, and potion glasses were a relief from the drip and mud. We learned in the schools which fools patronize, the mysteries of a Western winter. During the summer the car shop and the paint shop were built, the Montgomery House enlarged, and the railroad continued its monthly issues of scrip in jocular payment of its employes. The Linder Brothers gave up business; Cummings & Son failed to meet their engagements; Henderson, Hull and Hawkins were embarrassed, and E. E. Litchfield owed more than he could pay. E. W. Litchfield built Empire Hall, and a brass band was formed. Our sorrows came not alone, but in battalions. Senator Douglas, whose official term was about to expire, was a candidate for re-election. A chasm had opened between him and his party. Illinois had gone Republican at the State election two years before, and he could hope for no aid from the National Administration, and had grounds for anticipating its hostility, whether covert or open. On the Legislature to be chosen in the fall depended his hopes, and if he would not fail, he deemed it essential that he should make a popular canvass. The central counties were the debatable region, and on their political complexion rested the prospect of success. Mi-. Lincoln, the Republican candidate opposed to him, gained the initiative before his return from Washington. And soon after Douglas began his popular efforts, the terms of the famous forensic contest between them were settled. Their joint debate reduced to the plainness of axioms the pending issues in the irrepressible conflict. Trumbull also entered the canvass, and in an address at Chicago, spoke of cramming the lie down Douglas' throat. Douglas' readiness and anxiety to meet his accuser on the hustings for a reply to this insult was well understood. The day that Trumbull spoke here, Douglas had an appointment at Gillespie. John M. Palmer was announced to follow Trumbull in the evening, from the Republican stand at the southwest corner of the public square. Several Democrats visited Gillespie to invite Douglas here to speak in the evening. A rude stand was improvised against the north side of Empire Hall, where there was an open space about fifty feet by one hundred, thickly strewn with brick-bats. Douglas came, and proclamation was made that he would speak. When the hour came, no one was at the Republican stand, and several hundred persons were at the other one. Trumbull was not in the crowd, but a few rods away, where he could hear. Douglas knowing this, replied to the boast made in Chicago: his remarks were not reported, but it would be a charity to pretend that his language was parliamentary. It was vigorous, and uttered with a fiery vehemence and passion which manifested its earnestness. When he concluded, the Democrats shouted for Dick Merrick, who accompanied Douglas. The Republicans yelled for Palmer. The former claimed the stand; the latter clamored for fair play. They wanted Douglas to draw a crowd for their side. The shouting went on. If there was a lull, it was only to take breath. The brick-bats were suggestive. Some of the people laughed at the confusion, and some grew red in the face with anger or excitement. Finally, Judge Weir mounted the stand, and in a few sentences brought the meeting to a close. The Republicans admitted the provocation under which Douglas spoke, and the boisterous display of feeling when he sat down, led to no serious results. A few days later was election, and the total vote of the Litchfield Precinct, and the 359 majority for the Douglas candidates for the Legislature, were so unexpected that the legality of the vote was questioned at Springfield in an unofficial way, and the suspicion was removed only by the aggregate of the city election the following spring. During the year the removal of John P. Bayless, Postmaster, was attempted on a charge of virtual Abolitionism. Had the allegation been sustained, his official sin would have been unpardonable. He was invited to reply to the charge, which he accomplished to the satisfaction of the Department, and he was not again molested in his office until Lincoln was seated in the White House.
The village organization had been dissolved, and in November a special charter was drafted, for presentation to the Legislature about to convene for the incorporation of the town as city. At a series of public meetings this draft was submitted to the citizens, and, being approved, B. M. Munn went to the capital to urge its passage. On the 19th of February, 1859, it became a law, and at the first election under it, in April, W. E. Bacon was chosen Mayor, and C. W. Ward City Clerk, and James Kellogg Street Commissioner. The next year Mr. Bacon was re-elected.
The new city had an onerous task. An entire code of ordinances was to be framed and adopted, and public opinion to be educated to the knowledge and obedience to wholesome municipal regulations. The Council served with no compensation. The City Clerk received $60 a year; all other officers accepted their fees in full of salaries, and sidewalks were laid at the expense of real estate thus improved. The first year a tax of $2,200 was levied for schools and municipal purposes, and at the close of the year the Treasury contained a few hundred dollars to the credit of the next twelve months.
The first stage of the transition period had been reached. The business fever of the day when people wore daily arriving with their little accumulations to buy or build homes, was passing, and the hope of the people lay in their daily wages and employments here. Corn in the fall of 1859 sold at 10 cents a bushel, and the railroad continued its payment of "scrip," which was worthless in the city market. Debt was universal; but as frost pulverizes the earth for a future crop, so adversity prepared the people for a sounder prosperity. The class of adventurers, the Jeremy Diddlers, was weeded out. The men who could not pay and would not work, drifted to other places.
A telegraph line had been built, and George H. Smith appointed operator. An effort to secure the location of the County Fair was unsuccessful, through a dishonesty not to be extenuated. The commercial influence of the town was rapidly fostering political importance. A big Democratic majority in Litchfield was something bound to be respected, especially as the party was run by men who three years before were Henry Clay Whigs, and a fervent class not to be moderate in views or zeal.
In 1859, E. Southworth, wearied of failure to gain a livelihood on a farm where some calamity robbed him each year of the expected fruits of his labor, and judging the future by the past, came to the city to become a lawyer. He had crossed the plains on foot to be. a miner in California; had taught school and tried farming. Here he read law fifteen hours a day. He preserved the honesty of common life, and circumstances bowed down to his energy. He was an officer at the beginning of the war; has served as Alderman and Mayor, and been State Senator. He rose to the leading position at the city bar, and looks for promotion.
William A. Holmes, formerly of Morrisville, N. Y., but later of Platteville, Wis.,caine here about the same date, in the vain hope that the milder climate of Central Illinois would stay, if not heal, the pulmonary disease of his invalid wife. A man of social tastes, of warm sensibility, and ardent affections, he never rallied after her death a year after his arrival. For a time he sought legal business, but though a dozen years before distinguished by forensic ability, he shunned the court room and became distinctively an office lawyer, and confined himself to the preparation of court business. In the suspension of litigation which accompanied the war, he failed to improve his fortunes, and sought to dispel the gloom in which his days were shrouded by irregular indulgences. He died on that terrible New Year's day of 1864, in the absence of the early friend who alone here knew the secret of his earlier life, and had been glad and proud of his friendship. By temperament born to suffer, and in his pride strong to keep silence, he lost no friend and made no enemy.
Messrs. D. and O. Quick came here in 1860, and remained but a few months. They did not distinguish themselves at the bar. Litigation was of the simpler kind and afforded but small opportunity for lawyers. Hugh Colton, a young Irishman, needed toning down. He was impulsive, and had not learned that an orator at the bar succeeds quite as surely by being a profound lawyer as by his rhetoric. His stay here was not a long one.
George L. Zink passed from a lawyer's office in Steubenville, Ohio, to a pedagogue's chair in Gillespie, and in 1865, came here to begin the practice of his profession, bringing his political principles from the sanguinary field of Perryville. He had the legal cast of mind, was a hard student and a forcible speaker. When he became associated with E. McWilliams, he entered at once on a lucrative practice. Subsequently, he was a member of the legal firm of Southworth & Zink, and on its dissolution opened an office in his own rooms. In 1868, he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention, and four years later went into the Greeley party, and in 1878 was sent by the Democrats to the Legislature.
Robert McWilliams flitted from Shelbyville to Hillsboro, when J. M. Davis was most intolerant of the presence of a second lawyer in the county. Whether from constitution or abstemiousness, the plan of drinking him out of the county was a failure, and McWilliams had clients and success in the courts. He was a Republican, and the time came when he re-enforced his exhortations by enlisting and raising a company and going into the field. At his own request, he was relieved from service just prior to the battle of Nashville; but his Irish temperament would not let him come home until he fought through that decisive affair. About 1866, he removed to Litchfield, and asserted himself at the bar, in real estate operations and politics. He has just closed a term as a member of the Legislature, and the charity of the reader will not deem this much of a stain on a lawyer. Somebody must go to the Legislature and be misreported.
George A. Talley, who completed his legal studies in McWilliams' office, and on his admission to the bar became his partner, remained a few years, and then removed to Chicago. Though young in his profession, he had earned a high reputation for honesty and thoroughness. He had the aptitude of a student. He learned to know before deciding or giving opinions. He knew the law that others knew, and much that they did not. He cherished an honest judgment, and his departure was sincerely regretted.
There is an inevitable meanness in every grand event, and homeliness of detail in each heroic life which time does not wholly erase. We go a thousand miles away to get the mountain's height, and we are too near the men and things of which we write. The present tense is the fit one for our task. A fine ear would still detect the echoes of the first hammer strokes in the town. The writer was a part of what he writes, and as the sentences grow, the events return in their freshness, and he is moved by his recollections as he was moved by the events themselves, and he cannot compose a history of the city on perspective, and, like a Chinese draughtsman, leave the background and shadow out. Any one can be wise for yesterday, for he has results to guide his judgment. But Litchfield scarcely has a yesterday. Its history still retains the morning freshness of to-day. The incidents of its first years are as freely canvassed as those of the present. Each feeling and prejudice has been mused to keep it warm.
Dr. Gamble was the first physician. He dwelt in a log cabin half floored, a couple of blocks west of the Methodist Church, and left but a faint record. H. H. Hood transferred his office from Hardinsburg to Litchfield in the summer of 1854. A man of decided opinions, active, persistent and inflexible, he is familiarly known to all. Dr. John Grinsted came in 1856, from Woodburn, and, opening a drug store, practiced as a physician until advancing years compelled his retirement. In 1857, Drs. Strafford and Speers located here from St. Louis. Speers sojourned but a short time, but Dr. Stafford, much reduced in health, remains here. He never gained the position to which, by his skill, he might properly have aspired. Dr. Ash was here a year or two, but the field was too unpromising, and he removed to Brighton. Dr. John Skillman, from Alton, sought employment here, and then returned to Alton, but came back to die. His history is comprised in his Alton life.
Dr. R. F. Bennett located here in 1862, and has gained a large practice, and possesses a modest fortune. He has been twice Mayor, and twice an Alderman. Of Dr. Neff it is proper to say that he is better remembered for his financial transactions than for his professional successes. Dr. Colt, forced by the failure of his health from service in the gunboat fleet, came here in 18(33, and has reached an enviable rank in his profession. He loves the science of medicine, and the rod and gun, when he can steal a day with them. Dr. Backwelder went with Sherman to the sea, and finally settled here, and has a large list of patients Dr. Clearwater was for many years the country physician. His practice was enormous, and his fees would have been large had he exacted them. His reputation is built on his success in healing his patients. Dr. James, after serving in Price's army, came here. He lost his health, tried farming, and went to Virginia to die, but regained his health, and now attends to professional duties. Dr. Leach was the first homeopathist, and since his removal, ten or twelve years ago, has not been seen here.
Early in the "sixties," Ben Davis, the "snapping doctor," made semi-monthly visits. His audience room in the Cummings Building contained several backless benches, on which were seated a score or two of patients, as grave and silent and patient as "mourners" at a religious assembly. Davis circulated about the apartment, snapping his fingers like castanets, and professing to heal diseases by occult magnetic influences imparted from himself. The cures did not follow. His visits have been nearly forgotten, and the burly Ben is dimly remembered.
Only by an effort can the names of several other physicians who tarried here be recalled.
In the long, honorable list but three names have fallen to the ground. Drs. Alexander, Skillman and Grinsted have died. It is the best evidence of their worth and skill that, with the increase of population, the bills of mortality in 1881 were but little larger than in 1857, with only one-eighth of the present population.
In 1860, Litchfield was a microcosm. Not a speech at Washington, not an editorial by Greeley or Medary, or an utterance of the Charleston Courier, which was not re-echoed here. Not a general interest could be touched and not affect some business here. Politics was a study for each one. Supreme attention was paid to the presidential canvass, and there was much whistling to keep up a show of courage and hopefulness. Lincoln was elected, and the outlook was toward clouds and darkness. All classes here desired peace, and petitioned for the passage of the Crittenden resolutions.
For some reason as inscrutable as a prize conundrum, a delegate Democratic State Convention was called to meet at Springfield to deliberate on public affairs and offer suggestions. A county convention was accordingly held to appoint delegates. The writer drafted and presented resolutions to the effect that as the Republicans already were in power in the State, and were about to go into power in the nation, and, therefore, would be responsible for the administration of public affairs, it would be time enough for Democrats to give advice when it was asked for; as the Democratic party when in power had not averted the present danger, it was not clear how any advice they could give would now meet it; and hence the county should send no delegates to the proposed State Convention. Every member save Jesse M. Phillips and B. M. Munn, was in favor of peace and a peaceful policy. Those two gentlemen breathed war and battle. The resolutions were adopted and fully met the views of the people — a fact whose significance became apparent within a few years.
The Peace Congress was held, and accomplished nothing it was convened to accomplish, and much that was not anticipated.
Wrongs it might have redressed, but it could not change the fixed purpose of the South, which, by dividing the party, had caused the election of Lincoln, and then plead the consequences of its own act as a pretext for the consummation of a policy pursued for years. The Southern members of that Congress did not seek means of pacification. Their solicitude was to learn if the Yankees would fight. The answer covered more than the question. We quote the verbal version of it. as told by a member of the body:
"If, on a summer morning, in the season, you visit the wharf of any of the little seaports near Boston, you will see many little undecked boats newly arrived from the fishing-ground with their night's catch. The owners are marine farmers. They gain their livelihood by fishing. The sea and their boats are their patrimony. Enter into conversation with the fisherman who is tossing his catch on the wharf. Dispute his assertions; call him a liar. 'Mister, I can prove what I say.' Spit in his face, and, as he wipes off the saliva with his brown arm, he will reply: 'Mister, look out!' Abuse his State, and 'Mister, my State supplies your shoes, your clothes and your markets.' You cannot anger him or provoke him to a breach of the peace. You conclude he has no spirit. But touch one of his fish, and in a moment he'll thrash you within an inch of your life. The Southerner stood on the principle of personal honor, a shadowy thing, while the Northerner stood by the rights of property.
The one was a chimera; the other is the foundation of States and the AEgis of civilization. The news of the attack and capture of Fort Sumter was known here dimly on Sunday afternoon. The next morning the daily papers brought the details, and the humiliation of the policy which would not believe or act. A call was at once made for a public meeting in the evening. Empire Hall was packed, and R. W. O'Bannon presided. Several brief, pointed speeches were made. The sentiment was that as war had actually begun, force must be met with force, National supremacy be maintained, National property protected, and the Union preserved. The hour for debate had gone by. Action was the alternative, and forty persons that evening enlisted to tender their services to the General Government. In two days more the ranks were filled, and on the third day the company departed for Camp Yates, at Springfield, to be mustered into service in the first regiment raised in the war.
By association and early residence, this region was friendly to the South. But her conduct startled the people to a comparison of the claims of duty against the glamour of sentiment. Everybody lost his feet, and bowed to the whirlwind of feeling in behalf of the Union. At a later day, a lower set of principles came into prominence, and men gave to party what belonged to the country.
The history of the city during the war belongs in part to a distinct chapter. But as the value of slavery as a preponderating sectional issue flung off disguises which misled no one who did not wish to be misled, and its disappearance, by changing public policy, consigned a proud party to disaster and a minimum of influence, a changed attitude was assumed by not a few. A lodge of the Golden Circle met in the city. Men met by moonlight for military drill. Speeches were made on the main streets, exhorting the people to resist the draft. Men left the station for Ohio to vote for Vallandigham. Others departed for Chicago to co-operate in St. Leger's conspiracy to capture Camp Douglass. Refugees from Slave States led furtive lives here, and used a freedom of speech not permitted at home. The war was denounced, because in camp the "Democrat boys" became Republicans. Both the Democratic papers in the county were conducted by war-Democrats, and the elements of hostility to the war lacked coherence for want of leadership and public expression. About this time one B. F. Burnett came to town to gain a livelihood by soliciting legal business. His success as a lawyer was not great, but he prated dolorously of the misery of war, the sorrow it brought to uncounted families, and the blessings of peace. He knew some law, and might have been a reputable citizen if he had not. He became a nucleus for disloyal manifestations — a fit office for a loose-tongued scoundrel. Secret organization provoked a rival organization, and in the spring of 1863, a Union League Lodge was established here, meeting in the engine house of the car shops. The League decided to seek control of the city government, and all the measures were quietly made. A messenger was sent on Sunday to Alton to procure ballots, and the printer was taken from church to provide them. The messenger could not return until nearly noon of election day. The Democrats were ignorant of what was devised, and only themselves attended the polls, and few ballots were offered. The Republicans seemed to have lost their interest in civil affairs. The train came in from the west, and with electric quickness the ballots were distributed, and by evening were in the ballot boxes. The result indicated that about half of them had been deposited by former Democrats, and the League ticket had a tremendous majority. The Democrats were dumb with amazement, and the Leaguers, delighted by their success, celebrated the result in a manner which left headaches the next morning. The astounding change in public sentiment was not fruitless. Numerous volunteer associations arose to aid the Sanitary Commission, and in various ways to remember the boys in blue. But here, as in all popular effervescences, the worst elements came uppermost. Efforts were made to hurry the League into measures to gratify personal malignancy, and they were promptly discountenanced and their authors vanished. Rumor magnified the strength and purposes of the League. About the county, measures were concerted for forcible resistance to a draft. A military organization was maintained for the purpose. But it was known that boxes of Ballard rifles had been procured by the Leaguers to preserve the peace and the supremacy of the law. Bounty- jumpers skulked along the streets.
An emissary of the Golden Circle paid a visit to a Leaguer who was his personal friend. He said that he had heard that 5,000 stand of arms were in Litchfield. His friend gave an ambiguous assent. He exhibited to him a Ballard rifle as a sample of half the weapons, and then producing a Henry rifle, or a sixteen shooter, affirmed the second half of the arms were of that pattern. What report was made to the Circle has not been made public, but there was no longer danger that Litchfield would be molested, or the draft resisted.
The town was startled by fires, clearly the result of gross carelessness or incendiarism, and there was a disposition to connect them with political troubles. That pretence was speedily abandoned The disappearance of specie as a circulating medium, the depreciation of greenbacks, and the augmentation of the paper currency, inflamed prices and the city rushed into public improvements. Taxes went up like a rocket. A city hall was built, a schoolhouse was built, and the money was in good part borrowed at 15 per cent. The city was drunk on the excellence of its credit. Population rose to 4,300; wheat was $3.50, and corn 95 cents a bushel; sugar, four pounds for $1; muslin, 40 cents a yard, and flour $19 per barrel. Those were good times, but they did not last. The people went wild on railroads. The sum of $50,000 was voted to the stock of a railroad west to Louisiana, Mo.; the same amount to the St. Louis division of the Wabash, and $75,000 to the Springfield & St. Louis road. Fortunately, only the second one was built, and the other subscriptions lapsed. The town gradually adapted itself to the changed conditions prevailing since the war. Population had fallen ofl', the decadence of prices was established, and the Granger element was about to begin its by-play.
The removal of the railroad shops was completed in 1871, and the leading market for labor was closed. The spacious shops stood silent and tenantless. The city's opportunity had come; difficulty was but a goad to spur it on. Several parties here organized a company to lease the shops for the manufacture of rolling-stock for railways. The stock was eagerly taken, and in 1872 the fires were lighted and the machinery set in motion. The new enterprise soon disclosed that it would do more for the city than railroad shops had done. But within two years a series of fires, not all accidental, perhaps, had raged on State street. The schoolhouse, the pride of the community, had gone down in flame and ruin, and now a conflagration burst forth in the car works. Fortunately, most of the works were saved, but the loss of property and time was still serious. The town was brought face to face with the imperative want of water for industrial and fire purposes.
It is proper to be specific by way of recapitulation. In April, 1867, a fire kindled in the rear of the hardware store near the southwest angle of the public square, had humbled to ashes three stores and most of their contents, bringing financial ruin to two of the owners, and causing a total loss of $25,000.
Fires mysteriously appeared in the rear of other business houses, and were discovered in season to avoid damage. In the fall of 1871, the alarm of fire again startled the town. A crown of flame rested on the Journal building, and the rear rooms glowed with the yellow radiance of a fire fed by dry pine. Five buildings crumbled to blackness in a couple of hours, and the losses were not light to bear. A year or two later, fire bells summoned the people to witness the conflagration of six business places, from the O'Bannon corner north on State street. The Criterion Mill, in the early morning, went down in smoke and flame, and the Gage Mill on a Sunday afternoon lay under a pillar of smoke. Pale flames traveled through the interior. The blaze broke white through the roof, and for a few moments the people forgot the disaster in the presence of the magnificent spectacle. In 1873, the car works had their baptism of fire. Brick walls and earnest labor checked the flames when their fury was but half glutted. All these fires, most of them compressed into two years, had touched only individuals, and any philosopher can maintain his equanimity in the presence of his neighbor's calamity. The vagueness of each one's personal interest in the general welfare, and it is only personal interest which moves the common mind, provoked only unsubstantial regrets. The losses did not directly touch the purses of the many. In whatever the public undertakes, it is seldom indifferent to its own advantage. It was so in Litchfield. But this complacency at the prevalence of fires was rudely shattered. The spacious schoolhouse, overlooking the city, and in its designs and proportions as beautiful as a poem, was the pride and the object of the personal affection of every citizen. For several days the teachers and their 800 pupils had been choking with the acrid odor of smoldering wood. Like a gangrene, the perfume clung to the rooms. No smoke was seen, no fire discovered. A superficial survey detected no cause for the poison which had insinuated itself throughout the building. It was a Monday evening, about 6:30. A young married woman lay dying in the neighborhood. A lambent flame was seen quivering on the roof near the south chimney. Black smoke crowned the summit. Pale tongues of fire lapped at the woodwork. All the city rushed to the school grounds. The house burned like a flambeau. Nothing could be done to stop its destruction, and the people stood in speechless sorrow and saw the tire crawl downward from floor to floor, and expire in the cellar for want of fuel. Each one knew the tire brought financial loss to him, and that with proper water-works $40,000 would have been saved the city.
The frequent recurring fires, and the extent of the losses, gave emphasis to a desire for protection from further losses of a similar character. Protection was better and cheaper than insurance. There was forced or hurried eagerness to meet this general demand. Various schemes were considered. The cost of providing cisterns and a fire engine was computed, and the annual outlay of the system was found to be 10 per cent on the cost of a different system which would afford greater protection, and in addition produce a revenue from its value to shops, mills and households. In 1873, the car works brought water here by railroad. Best & Sparks paid $1,000 to teams to draw water four miles to their mill. The desirability of a water supply was not questioned, and there was a unanimous desire to fling a strong dike across Long Branch, a mile south of the city, and from the capacious reservoir thus created, send water into the heart of the town, under conditions which would meet our varied requirements.
The sort of works demanded was in substance the Holly system, or the system of direct pressure on the mains equal to the maintenance of a column of water 400 feet high, and through 100 feet of hose would project a stream upward of 100 feet into the air. Estimates of the cost of such a system were made to include only the dike, the mains and the pumping machinery, and this estimate was promulgated as a fair statement by experts of the cost of the waterworks. We make no excuse for the error in simple multiplication, which affected the cost of the dike 100 per cent. We have no comment on the suppression in the exhibit submitted to the citizens of numerous expensive items of cost, which, in the aggregate, were truly formidable. The facts speak for themselves. A few citizens knew the water-works could not be built within $25,000 of the explained estimates, and their voices were overruled and they reduced to silence. They would, at the proper hour, have appealed to the courts to prohibit the issue of bonds by alleging a want of power to legalize them. They could not be blind to the mendacity or want of rudimentary capacity to make simple calculations on the part of those who held that it was none of the tax payers' business how they run things. Again, it was a matter of law against expediency, as if it can be expedient to do wrong.
People are easily deceived when they want to be deceived. There was no uncertainty as to the value of water-works, none as to the ability of the city to build them, but there was a broad, explicit prohibition of law against going into debt beyond 5 per cent of the last assessed valuation of property, and our municipal debt was at that time within $12,000 of that limit. But the debt was in great part nominal, and not virtual. Since the completion of the Wabash road, in aid of which the debt was created, the assessed valuation of property had increased $800,000, and by the Railroad Aid Law, the State taxes on that amount were appropriated to paying the debt. This tax met annual interest, and left an excess of several thousand dollars as a sinking fund which would quite extinguish the principal at maturity. It was this law which alone induced the city to issue $50,000 in bonds to secure the road. The bonds were against the city, but the State agreed to pay them. This debt then was treated as virtually canceled, and taking this view, and listening to the vehement assurances of men in power that the water works completed could not cost more than $42,000, or by adopting the higher plan, $55,000, and there was no intention of doing this, the citizens in various ways expressed their enthusiastic approval of the project at an extreme cost of $45,000.
This was the plan approved by the community, under the knowledge that the operation of the Railroad Aid Law released them from liability for the bonds granted to a railroad.
True, in letter, they were bound; but in fact, the debt was to be paid not at their charges. But when, after expending nearly $20,000 on the ground alike and facing walls, the authorities ordered the preparation of bonds for $50,000 additional, framed so as to give full effect to the legal inhibition against their issue, and so as to give the city ground to content their payment, because issued in violation of law; and the omission in the recital which was to do this was passed over in silence — the thing became too flagrant. Yet at home complaints came too late. Nothing could be done to stop the authorities, and soon there was a wide suspicion that private objects were sought under guise of zeal for public ends. The works were completed by contract, and as well and economically as the public is usually served by contractors. The work was done when labor and material were one-fourth dearer than two or three years later, when by comparison with the reduced prices, men, having their own aggrandizement only in view, bellowed about the town vague accusations of fraud and veritable peculation.
Not one of these fellows could be induced to make and stand to a single specific charge. They proved their statement by numberless repetitions — a sort of evidence better for a certain class than positive proof.
The works cost $77,000 against the $45,000 they were to have been built for. But they stand, and have not in eight years failed in their duty for an hour. They are worth all they cost, and more, and the clamor about them which had no higher origin than a personal difference about matters disconnected with public affairs, would have died away had it not been kept alive by the city's repudiation of her bonds. Noisy advocates for the works refused to pay taxes to meet any part of the indebtedness, and the Council, by resolution, refused the payment of interest. Suit was instituted, and in the court of last resort a decision was obtained that the issue of the bonds was illegal. The vast majority of the citizens desire their payment, and the decision defeats their wishes.
This narrative of our shame had not been written or been true, had not the opinion crept into officers that their delegated powers were a franchise to be exercised according to their caprice. They forgot their representative position, and spurned conference or opinions from a tax payer. They never forgot self, and no offense was so great as the assertion that the people had any rights not vested in them.
In 1870, the population had fallen below three thousand seven hundred. The variance in population is the exact criterion of the industries of the town. In 1880, the total was reported at 4,343, and this was known to be too small. In 1881, the Jacksonville road had been extended to the city, a second coal shaft had been opened, oil had been found, the Planet Mill was in course of construction, the car works were over-crowded with work, and 100 buildings were erected, as the population had risen to 5,250, and the city had again rehearsed the old lesson that the people are the city, and that their future would be what they willed it to be.
Extracted 13 Oct 2018 by Norma Hass from History of Bond and Montgomery Counties, Illinois, published in 1882, pages 275-279.
