1882 History
Chapter 5 - Agriculture, Railroads
AGRICULTURE — ITS GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT AS A SCIENCE — THE WAY OUR FATHERS FARMED — IMPROVED METHODS AND IMPLEMENTS — COUNTY AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION — OFFICES, FAIRGROUNDS, ETC. — RAILROAD HISTORY — THE INDIANAPOLIS & ST. LOUIS RAILROAD — DIFFICULTIES ATTENDING ITS CONSTRUCTION — OTHER RAILROAD ENTERPRISES.
By W. H. Perrin
MONTGOMERY COUNTY has the reputation of being a fine farming section, and
without doubt its claim in this regard is well founded. While some counties may
show more of rich soil, and while others may be better adapted to some
specialty, yet we believe not a county in the State can lay claim to all the
advantages in climate, soil, water, timber and healthfulness that are justly
claimed for this. While in some sections a certain advantage may, with
propriety, be claimed as peculiar, we believe no other county combines so many
natural advantages. In some of the more northern counties we find larger crops
of corn, and in some of the more southern, a greater amount of fruit; but these
specialties, even in the localities named, are not always a certain crop. The
farmer's safest course is a diversity of products, and Montgomery County
furnishes an example of soil and climate which make it in an eminent degree
fitted for such pursuits.
For a number of years the natural advantages of this region were scarcely
appreciated, as the farming was carried on in such a manner as to obtain results
far below those now realized. Better farm machinery, better methods of planting
and cultivation, and the adoption of crops better suited to the soil have
wrought great changes. In an especial manner is this true in regard to methods
of planting, cultivating, harvesting and taking care of products. The way that
our fathers performed their farming operations is so little known to the present
generation who depend much upon farm machinery, and require the horses to do all
the work which men, women and children formerly did, that a description of the
old way, gathered from conversations with those who know whereof they speak,
cannot but prove interesting to the young farmer of the present day. Banish all
such modern implements as reapers, mowers, corn-planters, sulky plows, horse
hay-rakes, threshing machines, riding-cultivators, and some conception may be
formed of the primitive way of farming. The following was the mode of planting
corn. After the ground had been plowed with a wooden moldboard plow (which had
to be cleaned every few rods with a paddle carried for the purpose), and had
been scratched over with a harrow in which wooden pins were used for teeth, the
little shovel plow and a single horse were used for marking out both ways. After
the marking was done, the children, big and little, the men and the women went
into the field, and while the children with tin pails or small baskets dropped
the grains of corn in the crossings, the others, with great heavy iron hoes
covered or "kivered" it with dirt. After the planting came the hoeing, now
superseded by the improved cultivators. The tending by the single-shovel plow
was common until a few years ago. But the single shovel plow has had to take its
place with the old spinning wheel and loom, and they are now considered as
relicts of a past age.
Harvesting wheat, oats, rye and grass was formerly a laborious process. Even
within the recollection of comparatively young men of the county, the scythe and
cradle were counted as improved implements of husbandry; but the reaper and
mower, now in use, not only do a better job, but transfer the hardest of the
labor to the horses. The manner of cleaning the wheat from the chaff, after it
had been tramped out by horses or oxen, was by pouring it slowly out of a bucket
or half-bushel measure, for the wind to blow the chaff away. Next came the old
"fan-mill," turned by hand. But now the perfected thresher not only cleans and
separates the wheat from the chaff and straw, but sacks and counts the number of
bushels.
With corn at from 6 to 10 cents per bushel, oats but little more, wheat at but
25 to 50 cents, and other products in proportion, with the market at Chicago and
St. Louis, it is a matter of wonder that a farmer succeeded in obtaining enough
for his labor to pay for saving his crops. It is not difficult to understand why
so much of the county lay for so many years without occupants. Of course the
farmer in those days did not ride in carriages, pay heavy taxes, wear fine
clothes, or indulge in many luxuries; but they rode to meeting on horseback or
in the farm-wagon, wearing their every-day apparel done up clean for Sunday, and
paid the preacher with a bag of corn or potatoes, or not at all, as they felt
able. Yet, to say that they did not live comfortably and independently would be
a great mistake. The rifle supplied venison and other game, and the actual needs
of life were all furnished, though it would seem a great hardship to go back to
what some are pleased to call the " good old times.''
Fairs. — The farmers of the county turned their attention to the improvement of
agriculture and stock very early. To this end an agricultural association was
formed about the year 1850, as nearly as can now be ascertained, but as the
records of this association have been lost or destroyed, but little of it is
known beyond the fact that such an association existed, and was superseded by
the present society in 1857. Of the latter, the facts given herewith are
furnished by Mr. William K. Jackson, Secretary of the association.
The Montgomery County Agricultural Society, as it is now known, was organized on
Friday, July 3, 1857, at a meeting of a requisite number of the legal voters of
the county, all of whom have a voice in the affairs of the society. Of this
meeting, Hiram Rountree was Chairman, and John W. Kitchell, Secretary. A
committee was appointed, consisting of Benjamin Sammons, A. S. Haskell and
Austin Whitten, to frame a constitution and code of by-laws. The following
gentlemen were elected officers of the Society, to wit: Morgan Blair, President;
J. W. Kitchell, Recording Secretary; Solomon Harkey, Treasurer; J. A. Kolston,
Corresponding Secretary, and the following Vice Presidents: Thomas Standing,
Hillsboro; Robert Little, Audubon; James Kirk, Hurricane; Easton Whitten, Jr.,
East Fork; James McDavid, Bear Creek; C. V. Seymour, Walshville, and John A.
Crabtree, Litchfield. The following General Committee was appointed: Henry
Philips, William C. Miller, Henry Richmond, Harrison Brown, Hillsboro; William
Wright, Daniel Easterday, Audubon; Cleveland Coffey, Thomas L. Harvey,
Hurricane; Austin Whitten, Ezekiel Bogart, East Fork; John Price, William
Cannon, Bear Creek; William Kingston, Joseph Price, Walshville; Elihu Boan,
Thomas Hughes, Litchfield; Edgar Smith. Benjamin Rogers, Zanesville; L. H.
Thomas, P. De Witt, Bois D'Arc. The following resolution was adopted by the
Executive Committee: "Resolved, That we adopt and indorse as our own, all the
proceedings of the incorporated association heretofore known as the 'Montgomery
County Agricultural Society,' and are responsible for all debts heretofore
contracted by the same." A committee, consisting of Henry Richmond, J. A. Watson
and J. W. Kitchell, were appointed to select and purchase suitable fair grounds
for the use of the society.
The fortune of the society has been somewhat checkered, and from the records it
appears never to have been attended with very great prosperity as an
agricultural association. It owns very fine grounds southwest of town, and
which, with slight expense, could be so improved, as to render them very
beautiful, and at the same time valuable to the society. But the grounds and
buildings have now a rather dilapidated appearance, as though little attention
was bestowed upon them.
The present officers are as follows: Moses Berry, President; Robert Morell and
A. G. Butler, Vice Presidents; William K. Jackson, Secretary and Treasurer;
Directors — W. L. Blackburn. William Brewer, Hillsboro; A. T. Withers,
Walshville; Miner S. Goring, Morrisonville, and James Young, Nokomis.
The Litchfield Fair. — Mr. Coolidge furnishes us the following of the Litchfield
Agricultural and Mechanical Association: When, in 1857, the permanent location
of the County Fair was in suspense, it was officially announced that the
question would be decided by the town offering the largest contribution to its
funds. At the specified time, Litchfield offered a sum at least double any
competing town. But the authorities delayed their award and a recess was taken.
Before re-assembling, a pledge, which it was well understood would subsequently
be released, was made by James M. Davis, of Hillsboro, to carry his town to the
top of the list. It was an accommodation pledge, and was used to secure the
location of the fair at the county seat. The trick, to which the fair
authorities were parties, was remembered when, in 1867-68, Litchfield was
reproached by a Hillsboro journal in coarse, scurrilous terms, for not raising a
large sum as a gift to the County Agricultural Society. The citizens, thus
censured, gave reins to their indignation by organizing the Litchfield
Agricultural and Mechanical Association. An eligible tract of land was bought,
near the southeast corner of the town, and inclosed. Cattle-pens and stalls were
constructed, a half mile speed-ring prepared, and an amphitheater for a thousand
persons erected, and in October, 1SG8, the first fair was held. John W.
Davenport was President, P. B. Updike, Treasurer, and H. A. Coolidge, Secretary.
The weather was of a rigorous character. The wind and cold had a February
ancestry, yet the attendance was large and the fair was a success. The premium
list was liberal, and the awards were paid. But the cost of the ground and
fencing and buildings remained a dead loss. The association passed into the
hands of thirteen joint proprietors, who assumed the debts, and went forward in
their improvements. Fairs were held each year until 1875, when a fair was
omitted. But the next year the last one was held, and the association went into
liquidation, and the losses were paid by the proprietors. The property was sold,
and the concern became a thing of the past. A succession of vile weather Fair
weeks, and the wearing off of the novelty and the hard times, ate out its
prosperity. But its existence brought its compensations. It advanced the
reputation of the city for enterprise and courage, and the money sunk gained for
the community character worth many times the sum swallowed up.
Railroads. — The earliest attempts to construct railroads in the West originated
in the insane desire to enrich that great empire, as it might be called, by the
system of "internal improvements." This fever of speculation broke out in
different parts of the United States about the year 1835, and soon after it
appeared in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, leaving, when past, an
enormous debt upon each municipality or State Government. In Illinois, it
amounted to nearly $15,000,000, while in Pennsylvania it was more than double
that amount, and in Ohio and Indiana did not vary far from it. Examination of
the legislative acts of the Prairie State, at that period, discloses an almost
unbroken line of acts for the construction of some highway, which was destined
to only partially see the light of day in detached parcels, some of which still
remain as silent monuments of a supreme legislative and popular folly. When the
collapse came in 1837, and work on all was entirely suspended, only the old
"Northern Cross Railroad," as it was called, now the Wabash, was found in a
condition fit to warrant completion, and that only a short distance. It was
originally intended to extend from Meredosia through Jacksonville to
Springfield, Decatur and Danville to the Eastern State line, where it was
expected it would be joined to some road in Indiana, and be continued eastward.
A vast quantity of old flat-bar rails had been purchased in England by the
agents of the State, at an enormous expense, too; and quite a quantity had been
brought to Meredosia, preparatory to being laid on the track. In the spring of
1838, some eight miles of this old track were laid, and on the 8th day of
November of that year, a small locomotive, the "Rogers," made in England, and
shipped here in pieces, was put together, and made a trial trip on the road. It
was the first that ever turned a wheel in the Mississippi Valley. The first rail
on this road had been laid, with imposing ceremonies, on the 9th of May
preceding, and on through the summer the work progressed slowly, until the
locomotive made the pioneer trial trip above described. Only twelve years before
had the first railroad train made a trip in the new continent, and only a year
or two before this had the first application of steam been successfully made in
this manner in England.
This pioneer railroad, as stated, is now a part of the Wabash system, a division
of which diverges from the main line at Decatur, and extends to St. Louis,
passing through the western part of this county, intersecting the townships of
Harvel, Raymond, Zanesville and North and South Litchfield. It was completed
through in 1870, giving that portion of the county through which it passes
increased railroad facilities, and forming a valuable improvement in that
section. Further particulars of it will be found in the chapters on Litchfield.
The oldest railroad in Montgomery County is the present Indianapolis & St. Louis
Railroad, whose earliest inception may be traced to the speculative fever of
1835. When the appropriations for different roads were made, a route from Terre
Haute to Alton was one designated, and work performed on it in many places.
Contracts were let, portions of the road were graded, and the workmen were paid
in State paper, which, when the internal improvement system began to decline,
partook of a downward tendency, and left the creditors in rather a sad plight.
The work dragged for a time, and was at last wholly suspended as a result of the
hard times following the panic of 1S37. It was not until about 1849, that the
country was aroused from its dormant condition, when the Baltimore & Ohio
Railroad reached the east line of Illinois, and craved permission to come in and
cross the State on its way to St. Louis, its western terminus. At this point,
however, it met with a check which took it years to overcome. A "State Policy"
party sprang up, denying the right of any foreign corporation to cross the
State, especially when the effect would be to enrich the neighboring city of St.
Louis, a city Alton was vainly endeavoring to outstrip in the march of progress,
and which she then vainly expected to do. The "State Policy" party held several
rousing meetings in furtherance of their scheme, a scheme delusive in its
effects upon the State at large, and confined mainly to the Alton interest.
Counter influences were aroused, meetings were held, and an antagonistic party,
much the inferior at first, began to appear. The culmination came when the Terre
Haute, Vandalia & St. Louis road asked for a charter. The Baltimore & Ohio road
had succeeded in their endeavor to build their track across the State mainly
brought about by the press foreign to the State. It had, with one voice,
denounced the "policy" as narrow, selfish, mean, contemptible and invidious. It
was sustained by the press in the northern parts of Illinois, and had already
begun to open the eyes of many influential persons belonging to the policy
party. When the Vandalia road asked for their charter, the policy party exerted
themselves to the utmost to defeat that, and for a time prevailed.
While these affairs were agitating the State, Congress had passed an act
granting a magnificent domain of land in aid of the Illinois Central Railroad.
The Senators in Congress from Illinois wrote letters to many influential men at
home, urging upon them the necessity of being more liberal in their acts to
foreign corporations, and not attempt to arrogate to the State a right she could
not expect to possess. They further urged that the donation from the General
Government could not have been secured had they not pledged their earnest effort
to wipe out this disgraceful policy. These influences had their effect. The
"Brough" road, so called from its principal projector, afterward Governor of
Ohio, gained a charter, and were enabled to begin work on their proposed
Vandalia Line. In the meanwhile, influences were working to build anew the
projected roads of the internal improvement period. The grade on the old route
from Terre Haute to Alton, was, in many places, in a tolerably good condition,
and only needed energy to push it to a conclusion. A company was formed, the
name Terre Haute & Alton Railroad adopted, and work began. Montgomery, in common
with other counties on the route, subscribed aid to the enterprise. The road was
completed from the west end eastward some distance, and from Terre Haute west to
Mattoon, where it intersected the Chicago Division of the Illinois Central, then
uncompleted, and in January following the breach was closed, and a passenger
train made the entire trip from Terre Haute to Alton. For awhile, it transferred
freight and passengers here to boats, and sent them to St. Louis, so strong was
the Alton interest against that city. This, however, could not always endure,
and the coal road from one city to the other was purchased, and trains run down
on that. That changed the name to the Terre Haute, Alton & St. Louis Railroad.
When the route was extended eastward from Terre Haute to Indianapolis, the name
was again changed to the Indianapolis & St. Louis Railroad, by which it is now
known.
Montgomery County subscribed $50,000 stock in this road, while the city of
Hillsboro also took an active interest in it, as will be found in a subsequent
chapter. The county has sold her stock to Eastern capitalists, the sale of the
last $25,000 having been recently made. The road has become involved in late
years, and is at the present writing, we have been informed, upon the eve of
being sold. It has been for some time controlled by the Bee Line — an Ohio road
— by which the latter makes its connections with roads diverging from St. Louis
for the West, and of which system it will in all probability eventually become a
permanent division.
Another Montgomery County road, now in course of construction, is the
Jacksonville Southeastern Railway. This project has been in process of agitation
some twelve or fifteen years, and is now completed, and trains are running from
Jacksonville to Litchfield. The original intention was to extend the road from
Jacksonville in a southeastern direction to Centralia, or Mount Vernon, or some
eligible point, either on the Illinois Central Railroad, or in that section of
the State. Several routes have been laid out and surveys made through this and
Bond Counties. Through some lukewarmness or indifference on the part of the
people or cities, both Hillsboro and Greenville have failed in obtaining this
road, it passing a little west of Hillsboro and crossing the Vandalia line at
Smithboro, some three miles west of Greenville. The road will, probably, be
completed though at no distant day, and if it does no more, will become a
valuable feeder to the East and West roads which it crosses. The cities which
sat still and let it pass around them, perhaps, know what they are doing, but to
an outside looker on, their acts seem scarcely up to the present standard of
railroad enterprise.
A narrow-gauge railroad is also in course of construction through Bond and
Montgomery, passing near the line between the two counties. But in this day of
railroads and railroad enterprise, a narrow-gauge road is hardly looked upon as
of sufficient importance to create even a small ripple of excitement. Of this
road we learned but little, except that there is such an enterprise in
existence.
Extracted 28 Jan 2020 by Norma Hass from History of Bond and Montgomery Counties, Illinois, published in 1882, pages 199-204.
