Carrollton Patriot Newspaper
19 Jan 1906
30 Years Ago
CARROLLTON
A family of colored folks arrived in Carrollton and
the race problem bade fair to cause some excitement in the
public schools. (1876)
Transcribed 10 Dec 2002 by Shirley A. Aleguas
02 Feb 1906
The Whipping Post in Carrollton in 1832
by Dr. Samuel Willard
At the annual meeting of the Ill. Historical Soc., held in
Springfield last week, a paper of unusual interest was read. It
related personal reminiscences of its author, Dr. Samuel
Willard, who is now in his eighty-fifth year and a resident of
Chicago. Dr. Willard spent his boyhood in Carrollton and Greene
county, coming here from Boston with his parents in 1831. They
landed 25 miles from John Russell's house, after a journey of 27
days. Dr. Willard's narrative entire would fill more than two
pages of The Patriot, but being composed mainly of incidents and
sketches, we shall publish most of it in installments from time
to time. These sketches will be worth preserving, for nothing of
Greene county history has been so graphically told by an eye
witness.
In view of the present agitation for the establishem of whipping
posts Dr. Willard's account of the first and lonely public legal
whipping administered in Carrollton as he saw it, is apropos.
After telling of the first hanging, he says:
Another infliction of punishment which would now be more
revolting in public than a hanging would be, I saw on the public
square in Carrollton in 1832. There was then no penitentiaries
in the state, hence other penalties had to take the place of
confinement. Near the court house on the public square there was
set a strong post, an unhewen log, ten feet high, with a
crosspiece near the top. I saw a man brought from the jail by
the sheriff and a constable, to be whipped thirty lashes for the
theft of a horse. He was stripped naked to the hips, his hands
were tied and the rope was carried to the crosspiece and drawn
as tight as it could be without taking his feet from the ground.
Then Sheriff Fry took that terrible instrument of punishment and
torture, a rawhide. Probably many of you have not seen one. To
make it a taper strip of soft, wet cow skin was twisted until
the edges met, and the thing was dried in that position. It was
hard, ridgy, and rough, but flexible as a switch, three-quarters
of a yard long. The sheriff began laying strokes on the
culprit's back, beginning near his neck and going regularly down
one side of his backbone, the former sheriff Young counting the
strokes aloud. Each stroke made a red blood-blister. When
fifteen blows had been counted, the officer paused and someone
ran to the poor wretch with a tumbler of whiskey. Then the other
side of the man received like treatment. Then the man's shirt
was replaced and he was led away to the jail. One of the
bystanders said: "O, Lord! He isn't as bad cut up as G. H. was
when L. M. flogged him three or four years ago." Boy as I was I
did not know what a dreadful infliction it was. The whipping
post remained there 2 or 3 years, but I never heard of any
further use of it.
09 Feb 1906
Pestilence of '33
Cholera Epidemic in Greene
Recalled by Dr. Willard
One of the saddest incidents of early Greene County history
was the cholera epidemic of 1833. Local historians, however,
have told little of it beyond the bare statement that
thirty-three deaths resulted from it in Carrollton. Dr. Willard,
in the reminiscent paper read before the Illinois Historical
Society two weeks ago gives a most graphic account of the
epidemic and of the state of terror it produced among the
pioneers. As stated last week, Dr. Willard now living in Chicago
and in his eighty fifth year, was a boy in Carrollton in the
early '30's. Following is his account of the epidemic.
"The pestilence described as Asiatic cholera was first
described by a Portugese physician in 1560. A missionary doctor
told me that it is always present in Hindostan. In 1817 it began
a new career, moving westward from Bengal slowly, but steadily,
until it had overrun Persia, and in 1823 had touched the borders
of Russia. It lay dormant seven years and then moved forward
again, now rapidly, in the direction of the great human
migrations. It swept Russia in 1830, and ravaged England in
1832, having left a record of 900,000 dead on the continent. It
appeared in Quebec June 8, 1832 and 14 days later it was in New
York, and following the lines of commerce and travel along the
Ohio and the Mississippi, it was, by late October of that year,
in New Orleans, and St. Louis. Generally, but not always, the
cold weather checked it.
"In a suppressed terror, as waiting an inevitable fate, the
village of Carrollton looked for the arrival of the pestilence
in 1833. Its poison went in the air, even now we know not wholly
how. In some cases it verified Magendie's dictum to his class.
"Gentleman, cholera is a disease the first stage of which is
death." Its premonitary stage was on of painless purging and
vomiting,; this was followed by sinking of all the powers of
life, spasms, collapse and death. Sometimes the first stage was
brief and the violent infection of the poison carried the
recipient of it into the fatal stage at once. I was a patient
with cholera in 1833, surviving three onsets of it. As a
physician I met it in 1851.
"Sometimes the infection was so slight that persons of
vigorous constitution seemed to throw it off. Such was the case
with my father who never took to his bed and with my mother. She
went to St. Louis in the spring of 1833 and soon after was very
ill. Dr. Burritt said, after seeing cholera cases, that she had
a touch of it.
"Before the middle of June, Mrs. Clemson, who had not been
near our house, died of cholera. Instantly alarm spread through
town. Many fled. Most of those who did not or could not flee
thought flight hopeless for the poisoned air seemed to spread
out over the land. The shops and stores were opened only when
some one called specially on the proprietor. Nothing was brought
in from the country. A townsman went out to get some chickens
for the comfort of the convalescent. As he approached a
farmhouse the question was shouted at him: "Did you come from
town?" At the word "Yes" the family ran to the cornfield,
leaving him to take what he could find. In town, the silence of
night settled down upon the day, save as the physicians and well
moved about in care of the sick.
"Are there any new cases?" was the word on meeting. The daily
stage with the U.S. mail came and went as usual; other wheels
rarely broke the silence, except as the dead were taken away
from the desolated homes. The sound of the cabinetmakers tools
might be heard as he made a coffin of unseasoned black walnut -
there were no undertakers then…and the rank smell of the wood
became to me so associated with this horror that for years I
could not bear the odor.
There were no gatherings of people in groups. I do not remember
any religious rites at the funerals, any word of hope of
courage. I do remember bearing the doleful tones of Dundee once
Sunday in the last of the sad time.
"In my father's family were eight persons, My mother's nurse,
Ruth Rider, was taken suddenly and died soon. I was then taken
sick. Rachel Scott, the hired help, but more an equal member of
the family than of hireling, was a little ill when her brother
came to take her to Pekin on the Illinois River, against advice,
as if glad to get away, she went with him. While they waited for
a boat, cholera came upon her. The family of the house where
they were fled away. Her helpless brother stood by until she
died. He now looked for help for a burial, but the only work was
given rom a distance, "Dig a grave on the river bank; wrap her
in the bed clothes, and cover her in it."
"June 25, my youngest brother, Charles, a sunny boy of four
years, died of cholera; ten days later, I first saw death as I
watched with my father and the doctor till brother John drew his
last breath. Four of the eight were now gone. I remember the
anxious face of my father a few days later when I went through a
third crisis and survived, left the only child of my parents.
"In the haste of the frequent funerals, the memorials at the
heads of the graves were ill marked or not marked, and few could
tell where their dead were laid.
"At last life prevailed over death, and the plague abated as
sinks a tidal wave. Of the 500 people of the town about 33, one
in 16 I remember my father calculated, died in the (seven weeks
or more of the) pestilence (I have no memorand?? of names).
After a few weeks of rest my father and Dr. Burritt went to
Jacksonville to give help there.
"One singular thing remained in our memories in the contrast
with the sadness. It was noticed after the silence brooded over
the town that every morning a mocking bird in a tree near our
house would begin his song with all its rich variations,
warbling and trilling with his rich voice. Starting on a lower
branch as he sang he would fly (to one a little higher), then to
another still higher, until at last he reached the top most
spray. Then as if borne up by the stress and outburst of his own
melody, still singing he would fly up a few feet into the air
and sink back as if exhausted, soon to begin his solo again."
16 Feb 1906
Education in 1832
Carrollton Boys Learned Most by Observation
By Dr. Samuel Willard
Among his recollections of Greene County 75 years ago, as
recounted in the paper read before the Illinois Historical
Society, Dr. Samuel Willard tells something of the meager and
very crude educational advantages of that period. There were
none but private schools, and these were taught by any man who
could get subscribers enough to pay him for his undertaking. No
great scholarship was required of the teacher, as no pupil
expected to learn more than the "three R's, readin', ritin', and
'rithmetic". Isaac R. Greene was teaching in Carrollton in 1831
and in the winter of 1831-32 Dr. Willards father, Julius A.
Willard followed him. It seems that the latter was a progressive
teacher and made a small blackboard for his little school out
there in the far west, at a time when black boards were an
innovation in the schools of cultured Boston. Dr. Willard says
that Revel W. English was one of his father's older scholars.
There was an older type of school still in vogue at the time
known as the 'loud school'. In these schools pupils were not
only permitted, but expected to study their lessons aloud.
Silence was evidence that the pupil was idle or in mischief. Dr.
Willard says that once he happened to be in a part of the town
where he rarely went and heard a humming sound like the noise of
a distant mill. Looking for its source, he approached a log
cabin, and found a loud school. One pupil was studying his
spelling lesson, another reading the stories in back of the
spelling book, another struggling with the sevens in the
multiplication tables, and so on, each doubtless striving to
study hardier and louder than the others.
Speaking of one phase of education which it is impossible for
a boy to obtain now, either in Carrollton or elsewhere, Dr.
Willard says:
"One part of my real education, one practically
(particularly) valuable, cannot be obtained by a boy in these
days of factories and abounding commerce. In such a primitive
community all the primary & necessary trades could be seen in
their operations; & as the workmen found that I never touched
tools or materials they allowed me considerable freedom in their
shops and answered my reasonable questions. I saw the round logs
drawn from the woods and squared into building timber by old
John Dees broadax, queer with its handle set askew. I saw that
what I think cannot now be seen anywhere in the U.S., the
framing & raising of Joseph Garrish's house done in the old
style. The timbers of two sides were framed or put together with
treenails or pins, while the timbers of the other side were laid
near where they would be wanted, every piece being marked and
numbered. Then all the neighbors were invited to the 'raising',
and these sides were lifted by, hands then by pikes and lastly
by long poles, while Garrish & Dee guided the tendons of the
corner posts into the mortises. Had they been careless or let
the post slip the framing would have fallen in wreck, with loss
of life. While a few guarded these erected sides, most went to
set up the timbers and studs of the other two sides, where many
hands, but less strength was required. Whether Mr. Garrish
furnished the brown jug, usual upon such occasions, I do not
remember; I suppose he did.
"For the finishing of the house no costly pine or soft wood
was had. A rough shed was built in which oak boards were stacked
on trestles loosely so that fires built under them might slowly
expel the sap and so season them. Laborious planning took off
the smoke & shaped them.
I saw the making of lime as it was done in Greece 25 centuries
ago. A pile of hickory wood 8 or 10 feet high was topped with a
load of broken limestone, the wood was fired and the next
morning there remained only, the white ashes & the calcite stone
turned to clear white lime.
I watched the work of the tanner with the raw hides and of he
currier while he finished them. Then I saw the shoemaker and
saddler in all the processes of their occupations. I scanned the
work of the blacksmith and the Ferrier and learned its reasons.
More familiar was the work in wood by the carpenter and
cabinetmaker. When Smith & Baker built a sawmill and then a
flourmill, I was the interested watcher of the whole proceeding.
In the flouring mill I understood every step of the business,
from the winnowing of the wheat to the barreling of the
perfected flour.
"Pine lumber was, in those days, floating down the
Mississippi in rafts which were broken up at St. Louis. The
boards for Carrollton were brought up the Illinois River to
Bushnells ferry, now Columbina, and taken thence in wagons.
While they were in the river they become ingrained with sand,
greatly, to the discomfort of the carpenter, and caused the
early dulling of his planes, as I knew from experience.
"How to put up an ash-hopper and how to make soap, both soft
& hard, I knew before I was 10 years old. The art of the cooper
I did not see in Carrollton, but in 1835 in the shop of Irving
Randall, I knew Elihu(sic) Palmer, afterward a noted Baptist
preacher and his brother, John. both went to the academy out of
which grew Shurtleff College, as fellow pupils with me. Thus it
happened that I saw our late senator and governor, John McCauley
Palmer, make his first barrel.
23 Feb 1906
Col. Edward D. Bakers Carrollton Days
The week of our arrival in Carrollton, in May of 1831, was
one of excitement & stir in the little town. There was to be the
wedding of Edward Dickinson Baker, a young man not yet 21, with
the widow Lee, older than he. I am not sure whether I then heard
for the first time that French custom the charivari or shivaree,
a mock serenade of tin pans & horns often inflicted on ill-mated
couples. I heard one that year, if not then. Baker was popular,
and if some thought that he married for money, it was hardly
made a fault. Certain it is that business thrived thereafter in
the store of Sullivan & Baker, and in the mills, which they
built. Moses O. Bledsoe and old lawyer, clerk of the circuit
court, and probably the most influential man in Greene County
favored Baker & led him to study law. The liking was certainly
reciprocated, Baker following Bledsoe's lead & was even called
Bledsoe's shadow.
The camplellite Baptists were making many converts in 1832 &
when Bledsoe became one of them Baker soon followed. One Sunday
I went with my mother to their church & and there I learned what
was abundantly proved afterward, that Baker, young & untrained
was an orator by nature. The church was without a minister and
was served somewhat Quaker fashion by inspiration of the
brethren. Report of Baker's exhortations had led my mother to go
there. After I know not what of dull discourse by some one,
Baker stepped into the pulpit. His motions were easy & graceful,
his voice was full, but clear, sweet and smooth. His thoughts
were pertinent uttered in pure English, warmed by feeling &
adorned with metaphors born of a fertile imagination. That all
this should come vividly to me now, after the lapse of three
fourths of a century - for I even remember something that he
said - shows how impressive was his speech. I know that he moved
men wherever he spoke.
From Carrollton, Baker went to Springfield & there became the
partner of the oldest son of Moses O. Bledsoe, Albert Taylor
Bledsoe. Baker went to congress & afterwards took part in the
Mexican war as colonel of an Illinois regiment. He went to
California in 1852 & won fame in politics, but California was to
hopelessly under pro-slavery Democracy. He went to Oregon and
won a Republican victory there, and was sent to the Senate in
1860. On his way east he called to see his friend Lincoln, so
that I saw him in Springfield in December of that year and
talked with him. I can still call up to my vision his face as it
was darkly clouded by the anxiety which he felt in common with
all patriots from that time forward. Less than a year later
impetuously leading his men as commander of a brigade he fell in
the Battle of Balls Bluff.
02 Mar 1906
Politics & Religion in Carrollton in 1832
by Dr. Samuel Willard
I watched the whole process of the election of members of
congress & local officers in Greene County in 1832, my father
being a clerk at the election. In preparation large sheets of
paper were ruled into columns, a broad one for the names of the
voters, and as many narrow ones as there were candidates for the
offices, their names being written at the heads of the columns.
The voter came up & declared for whom he voted, the 2 or 3
clerks recording his declaration. It was slow work, but the
voters were not many and there was no crowding or haste. I
remember that my father said to the other clerks and judges of
the election, "While we are waiting for voters, let us do our
voting." There were three candidates for congress and one got so
few votes that I wondered that he ran at all. He was Sydney
Breese, later a famous man in the state.
The viva voce method gave friends of local candidates an
advantage, since they could keep track of the election and call
in laggard voters for their candidates or party. but independent
or whimsical voting was difficult. The ballot was introduced in
1848.
I may record it as part of my Illinois training that my
father took a Whig newspaper, the Illinois Patriot, and before I
was eleven years old I was familiar with the names of the
leading politicians of the nation, Andrew Jackson and his
cabinet, and with the vehement political controversies then
going on.
The people of Carrollton & the vicinity were mostly of
southern & western births. They called those who came from
Pennsylvania and New York Yankees. I do not remember anything
but good feeling & hospitality on the part of the people towards
the easterners, unless the latter in some way assumed
superiority. Each side naturally felt some amusement at the
different ways of the other, but expression of the feeling was
good-natured.
The New Englander had to give up Thanksgiving or celebrate it
in his own home only. It was harder to adopt the western
enjoyment of Christmas since the Yankees had for 200 years
opposed the festivals of the English & the Roman churches. The
children were easy converts.
The Methodist church pioneer Protestant body in the west was
early in the field in Carrollton, but in 1832 the easterners
were so numerous that a Presbyterian church was formed into
which the Congregationalists went and a revival meeting added to
both churches & caused the formation of a Baptist church. that
was organized by the greatest Baptist preacher in the state, who
is memorable for his share in the warfare of 1823-24, when a
strong effort was made to turn Illinois into a slave state. John
M. Peck was one of the mighty ones on the side of freedom. he
traversed the state in a thorough canvass, preaching the gospel
& liberty alike. He was at this time (1832) forty-three years
old and still in his prime. I count myself fortunate in having
seen three of the leaders in that fight, Judge Samuel Drake
Lockwood, John Mason Peck, and Thomas Lippincott. The latter was
in 1824 a politician, but was the first pastor of the
Presbyterian Church in Carrollton.
A NOTE FROM DR. WILLARD
Editor of the Patriot: When I wrote my paper of my remembrances
of the early days when I was a boy in your town, I had not a
thought of the interest that the people of that place might have
in hearing of what went on there so long ago. I thank you for
the copies of the Patriot which you sent me, which I had what I
said of the cholera & the whipping post. I scanned the papers
eagerly & closely to see what surnames I could find that would
be familiar, recalled from the vanished years. I found four
names that were right in both surname & given name.
Ornan Peirson in 1832 was a salesman for Robert Negus, who kept
a store on the east side of the street that leads out northward
from the northeast corner of the public square. This original
Pierson had a pleasant face, dark hair & black eyes. Mr. Negus
had a habit of walking to & fro on the porch which ran along the
front of his store & passing coins from one hand to the other to
enjoy the clank. His wife had the cholera toward the close of
its run & recovered.
Elon Eldred lived out west of town. I should say that an Elon,
Jr. and his brother Jeduthun went to the Sunday school which I
attended. I see 4 other Eldreds mentioned & a friend tells me
that she had pupils of the Eldred name in her school at Macoupin
County. the original stock was good.
John Hardcastle was a cabinetmaker on the north side of the
block west of the square. I remember seeing in his shop wild
cherry lumber on which work was done & I heard him say that with
aquafortis he could make a food imitation of mahogany. I see in
The Patriot names of John, Ella & Robert Hardcastle, whom I
presume to be descendants of the man whom I knew. George Bowman
is another remembered name. He was a farmer living south of the
town and I think, but am not sure, that he was the man who made
and ox work in the shafts like a horse. Some man who lived south
did that, perhaps Taylor was the man.
I see the name of Reno. Mr. Reno lived south of the square on
the east street which was the road to St. Louis. he kept a
hotel, built in southern fashion, with two-story porch in front.
I do not recall Mr. Reno but I remember Mrs. Reno was a woman of
very pleasant face and manner.
The Turney family lived not far from the Renos. I noticed the
name Pegram, but I cannot place my recollections of this family.
Your notice of the death of William Alexander Pegram says he
became a resident in 1845, but that is too late for me.
One other name I find, Georgia Meldrum. the Meldrum family lived
perhaps 1/8 the mile south of the square. I was sent to Mrs.
Meldrum for milk some mornings when we had no cow.
All other names in The Patriot are entirely foreign to my
recollections of Carrollton. I expected to find more names of
those I knew, but their absence is hardly strange when I
remember that nine of those I knew left the town in the few
years during which Carrollton was not unfamiliar to me. If this
is of value to you I may find time to tell more of my
recollections of Carrollton & Greene County.
02 Mar 1906
Threw Egg at Lady Teacher
A mean cowardly assault made by a pupil upon one of the lady
teachers of the H. school has occasioned great indignation the
past 2 days, & public opinion now demands that hoodlumism in the
schools must be stopped.
Wed. forenoon, while other teachers were out hearing recitations
Miss White was left alone in charge of the H. school assembly
room. She was busy for a few minutes placing some work on the
blackboard, & while her back was turned, an egg, hurled by
someone at the rear of the room, passed closed to her head,
brock against the blackboard directly in front of her, &
splashed over her clothing.
The act was evidently premeditated but no pupil would admit
doing it or seeing any one do it. Teachers were indignant at the
outrage, & several of them declared they would resign unless the
matter was thoroughly investigated and the perpetrator punished.
The board of Education had a special session that evening, & a
no. of the High School boys were called up to tell what they
knew of the affair. With one accord they refused to name the
culprit or declared they did not know. The board was in seasion
until nearly midnight, & succeeded in getting only
circumstantial evidence, which however every member felt
satisfied was correct and, on the strength of that, they voted
to suspend the boy implicated until further developments. The
supposed perpetrator of the assault belongs to a prominent,
highly respected family & was never thought capable of so
unmanly an act.
One of the worse features of the affair is that the pupils
deliberately lie to shield each other. Somehow they have
acquired a totally wrong notion of honor, & they seem to think
it manly to side with the law-breaker, rather than with the
execution of law. For what sort of citizenship as these boys
being prepared. IN what positions of trust & responsibility will
they be wanted.
09 Mar 1906
Alfred Johnson, Will Fergeson & Lester Robley have been
suspended from the high school for connection with the egg
throwing case last week. The 1st name confessed to being the egg
thrower.
Miss White, the innocent victim of the assault, tendered her
resignation as a teacher in the High school. The school board
wished her to remain and voted to grant her a vacation of a
week. She insisted, however, upon resigning & she departed
Saturday afternoon for her home in Warrensburg, Ill.
Miss White’s departure, especially under the circumstances that
caused her leaving, is greatly regretted. She had proved herself
a teacher of considerable ability. Beside her regular work in
the High School, she had charge of, & had developed much
interest in, the physical culture work. She also helped
materially in the music of the school.
23 Mar 1906
No Rats Before '33
More Local Reminiscences
By Dr. Samuel Willard
I think that few people are aware that our plague, the rat,
is a later comer to America than the white man. He is a Tatar;
he entered Eastern Europe soon after 1700, and reached England
about the time of Braddock’s defeat. Like the white man, it is
not strange then, that in 1831, I saw men looking with curiosity
at a dead rat on the levee in St. Louis as Chicago boys would
look at a dead raccoon in the street. In 1833, there were no
rats in Carrollton except in the warehouse of John Evans, and in
the 2 or 3 houses next it.
But in 1831, prairie wolves used to come within a half-mile
of the village and I heard them take toll of pigs, which beast
acted as scavengers and ran loose, like the cows. There were no
laws for in closure of animals; the fields and the gardens must
be fenced; which was done at that time in the most economical
way. After the corn was gathered gaps were left in the fences
and the cows of the village found fodder in the stalks and the
omitted ears.
A “painter” that is a panther, or really cougar, was said to
infest the woods of Carrollton at that time, but there really
was one near Upper Alton and even on the road between that place
and lower Alton in the year 1838.
Strawberries were not cultivated, but delicious small ones
were abundant in the grass of the prairies, tiny but sweet. I
went into the woods to gather luscious plums for preserves; the
canning of fruit was yet to be invented. The tomato was in 1828
regarded as a mere garnish to adorn the edge of the meat
platter. Many thought it poisonous, since it belongs to the
family of the belladonna or nightshade. By 1832 my parents, who
were pioneers in experiments, were eating tomatoes as everybody
does now.
The New Englanders in Illinois missed the golden glow of the
dandelion in the grass and wrote to their friends to bring seed
when they should come and thus it was introduced.
The country people of Greene County brought little of their
produce to the town except cordwood, grain for the mill and
peaches, apples and potatoes in their seasons. The women brought
chickens alive, eggs and butter. Of the quality of the butter
there could be no boast. Mr. Alexander said to one of his
customers: If you had left a little more buttermilk in it, I
could have squeezed out a good drink.
An English woman who was noted for the excellence of her
butter, thought that there was not ventilation enough of the
dairies, and using a superfluous "H" she said to my mother:
"They don't give it hair enough." But I saw some samples which
could have been improved by putting the hair on one plate and
the butter on another. Time and the perception of the demands of
the market improved the butter.
In this land of strange customs it disgusted me to see people
eating loppered milk, calling it bonnydabber, when at my
grandfather's, I had seen it as pig’s food only. In most things,
the Yankees soon accommodated themselves to western ways and
used the open fire and dutch oven as if accustomed to them all
their lives. But in a few years, stoves largely displaced the
open fire for cooking in the farm houses as well as in the
villages. 10 years saw a great change in that matter.
Transcribed 06 Dec 2002 by Linda Jones Craig
Apr 1906 possibly
More Local Reminiscences
By Dr. Samuel Willard
Carrollton of 70 years ago had not a single 3 story house.
there were a few of brick and there were some log houses. I have
related that the ‘Lorid School’ was in a log house
As the streets bore no names and I do not know how they are now
named, I shall name them for my convenience thus: The street on
the north side of the square I shall call North 1st Street, that
on the east side of the square East 1st Street, and so on; thus
the reader can easily make out the locations I refer to.
On North 1st Street, beginning at the northeast corner of the
square was the Carrollton Hotel, kept by Mr. Gatesby Gill, and
easy going fleshy man of middle age who comes up to my vision
sitting comfortably and smoking a pipe; for the hotel business
was never lively. With his son, Thomas, who was a little older
than I, I formed an eternal friendship; and when Mr. Gill sold
out and moved to Salem, Marion County, Thomas and I exchanged
letter 2 or 3 times and lost sight of each other forever after.
West of the hotel I remember the store of Smith & Baker; and
further along, the dwelling in which the first victim of
cholera, Mrs. Clemson, lived. Her son was one of my playmates.
Then there lay next the brick house of the widow Lee, who
married E. D. Baker; it occupied 2 lots and cornered on the West
First Street. Frank Lee went to Springfield with Mr. Baker,
being 9 or 10 years old when his mother married again.
I cannot name all the houses and their occupants of the
building next west, on the diagonal corner, in which I saw a man
sitting before a hot fire in July, seeking comfort in the ague
fit of intermittent fever, which was called generally "Fever
Nager". Next west was Moses Stephens, who moved away before
1834. Next I remember was Mr. Sawyer - I am not quite sure of
the name who owned the building west of his house that was used
for school and church purposes. In 1836 I found the Sawyer
family on a farm a few miles south of Jacksonville. In that
school house I heard "Father" Clark, an eloquent, earnest and
famous preacher of the Methodist church of that time, then fully
70 years old; I heard John Brick an Englishman who dressed in
the old style with knee breeches, he was over 80 but continued
at his evangelistic work until one day he was overcome by the
cold of a hard winter day; he was found seated on the found by a
tree, frozen stiff. In that house the Presbyterian met and
formed the Presbyterian Church and there Elder Dodson preached
from the text "Prepare to met thy God" in such style that I
wanted to run away from God as a tyrant and a terror.
Next on the same side of the street lived Dr. Dulaney, who
had children, Marshall, Sophia, William and Edna, the last died
of cholera. I think that none of the family remained in
Carrollton: Sophia married a man from Jacksonville. Right
opposite Dr. Dulaney in the house belonging to "Tice" - That is
Mathias - Link, Mr. J.A. Willard lived on arriving in the town.
It was at the corner of West Second Street on the west side of
which Joseph Garrish put up his house, the jail being a little
south of him. Turning from my father’s east toward the square
come first to Hardcastles cabinet shop and dwelling. Who next on
the corner of West First and the square I can not say; it seems
to me that Dr. Orange B. Heaton, who married Moses O. Bledsoes
oldest daughter lived there. Turning south along the west side
of the square, the next house is that of Moses O. Bledsoe, built
in southern style, with broad two-story porch. Mr. Bledsoe might
be called chief man of the town; he was a lawyer, clerk of the
circuit court, with sufficient income; his son Albert T had
graduated from West Point, but had resigned and entered the
ministry of the Episcopal Church, his son William was still at
home, but it seems to me that he died of cholera. His older
daughter married Dr. Heaton.
Mr. Bledsoe had the largest library in the town and the
newest books. It pleased him to find such a bookish boy as I was
and he used to lend me books.
Next across the alley was a small one-story house which our
family occupied for a short time. Further south at the corner of
the square lived Dr. Alexander Hamilton Burritt, who in 1834 or
1835 moved to the rising town of Jerseyville and about the same
time there went thither the families of Garrish, Page and
Farley, which had come to Carrollton in the summer of 1831.
On South 1st Street west of the square I remember but one
resident whose face and figure I remember better than that of
his modest daughter Jane. On this south side of the square the
Willard family lived during the cholera; next east were the
warehouses of John Evens; then the home of the Rev. Thomas
Lippincott; then the house and lastly the store of that lover of
fun Andrew Alexander. This store was at the corner of the 2
streets. Mr. Alexander soon moved to Alton. He complained that
the rich soil of Greene County, after a rain made a man a
landholder, whether or no.
Now let us cross the East 1st Street and see the rest of
South First. On the diagonal corner stands what was then called
a grocery; now called a saloon - kept by Timothy O. Vigus. As
the little building stood on the corner of the lot on which was
the house occupied by our family, and as I had a boys curiosity,
I saw much of "The Grocery". The business of liquor - selling
then bore none of the stigma that attaches to it now, when the
great order of Odd Fellows and some similar orders refused to
admit a saloon keeper or bar-tender and class them with
professional gamblers.
There was no-screen in Vigus's grocery; a table stood in full
view, where I often saw men playing dominoes. I can not remember
that I over saw a game of cards played there; nor did I ever see
a man to near intoxication to walk to his horse to mount, though
some had perhaps passed the bounds of discretion.
Further east was the house occupied by Willard and next was
Dixon H. Kennett; the hatter, whose daughter Agnes was, in my
opinion the prettiest girl in town. Further east lived Major
Ranney with whose sons Charles Lippincott and I had a boyish
feud without reason. There was some throwing of stones but on
both sides the dodge was better than the throw. Last that I
remember on that street was John Williams, the butcher.
Now return to the public square. At the corner the Condell
brothers kept a store. Next going north, was the house and store
of John Evans, a brick building; then to the alley was Mortimer
Kennett, store and dwelling house. In the store was the Post
Office. My father was, for a year before he moved to Alton,
salesman for Kennett and lived in the house. Here I saw the
operations of the Post Office as described in my historical
address. Across the alley was Keach, the saddler with a
journeyman and apprentice named Hart.
Further north was Scott, the tailor, and others I cannot
recall. At the diagonal corner was the store of A.W. Caverly and
Justus Rider. Now going north we come to the store of Robert
Negus, whom I mentioned in my letter to the Patriot of March
2nd. A little further the road slopes to the north slightly and
on the right was the house of Squire Caverly, built in southern
style with 2-story porch front. I was told that Mr. Caverly had
been state senator from that district. His wife was noted as a
beauty and I remember her sweet attractive ways. She died in the
Home for the Incurables in Chicago about 1890; and I went to
look at her face after the interval of nigh sixty-years; but oh,
disease and age had left not a trace of the early beauty! Next
was the brick house of Justus Rider, which was struck by
lightening before it was finished. The Rider family, I found in
Bunker Hill in 1840.
Then we come to the McFaddens tannery with his home
adjoining. I remember Mrs. McFadden because from her I first
heard the western tern of endearment to a child, ‘Honey’. It
really confused me. A little further north lived Mrs. Polly
Rider, widow of a brother to Justus. She had a daughter Eveline.
Right across the street lived a man whose name I cannot recall,
though I remember it began with H, and his nephew was William
Hayden; he and his cousin were but little older than I.
Going south from the corner of the square on East First
Street, we come presently to the tavern on the left kept by
Skidmore and later by Downey; on the right to Reno’s hotel and
the Turney residence. And pushing on, we reach the home of the
first of the apostles, Simon Peter in presiding elder in the
M.E. church.
Going east from the northeast corner of the square we pass
the office of Dr. J. B. Samuel and within less than 1/2 mile we
come to the houses of Sperry and George B. Ranney, the latter
was made postmaster, superseding Kennett, who was much provoked
at the change; he moved not long after to St. Louis. On this
street not far from the square was the church where I heard E.
D. Baker in the pulpit. On the same street west of the square
about a mile I should think lived Mr. Lancaster, one of whose
sons was a cripple from rheumatism, with legs permanently
doubled under his thighs because of stiff knees. He moved about
by means of short crutches held in his hands. Still further west
lived Dr. Isaiah Potts and old man.
In the letter you published March 2, I mention the families
of Pierson, Hardcastle, Eldred, Reno, Meldrum, Turney and Negus
as coming within my remembrance; I now add the families of Fry
and English which I cannot locate, though I know members of
them. The same I must say of George Borroughs, (I hope I spelled
the name as he did) who was in my fathers school. Of people in
the vicinity I remember on the north the Miller Morfoot, and a
farmer name Ogle. East of town lived the Tunnells, south Bowman
and Taylor and 2 or more miles southwest was a man well fitted
with the name Good.
I have given you a pretty long string of my remembrances of
the people of 70 years ago. I could add little more of that
sort. I am not willing to give shadowy half-certain impressions;
I will add some incidents.
There was an imbecile man, between 20 and 30 years of age, as
I remember him, who, being harmless, was allowed to wander at
his own will. Every body treated him kindly. When going around
he was always talking to himself or shouting so that his noise
attracted little attention, persons hearing it would only, say
or think "there's Jimmy again". One winter morning after a
freeze had followed a period of soft muddy streets, all
Carrolltonians were shocked to hear that Jimmie was found flat
on his back frozen to death. Somebody had with kindness in his
heart given him a taste of liquor and when he fell he was unable
to rise from his muddy bed, or perhaps did not try, and those
who heard his noise thought nothing of it. But someone who heard
this story put it into verse with reflections on the inhumanity
of the people of the town where it occur, and these verses
appeared in the Ill. Patriot of Jacksonville. Mr. E.D. Baker
wrote a sort of reply in verses as good at least as those of the
Patriot, but I doubt if he ever sent them.
In 1833 - 4 there was a half-crazy man named Hale who used,
in the winter, to earn a living by cutting wood for the
housewives. He was sure to appear at someone’s woodpile on a
cold morning, to chop a short time and then to go into the house
and get some breakfast which was hospitality given. On going out
he would not return to the same woodpile, but would transfer his
attention to another pile enter another house and eat another
meal. I heard a lady declare that she had traced him one morning
to three breakfasts won in that way. At least the last place he
liked to sit by the fire and deal out some of his crazy fancies,
which were sometimes quite entertaining. He was crazed by a fall
which broke his skull pieces of which were missing.
I wish I could locate the following incident, but I can say only
that the place was somewhere south of the square and the time
was the winter of 1833 – 4. The cry of 'fire' fortunately a rare
one - startled the people of the village and the men rushed to
the spot, guided by the light. It was a small log cabin - they
were never large- and the poor women who lived in it were in a
group outside, looking hopelessly at the blaze. I heard one of
them say "Oh, it's got to go!" There was crusted snow on the
ground a few inches deep. 25 or 30 men were soon at hand. Then I
saw Mr. Condell, the merchant, pick up a big crust of snow and
hurl it against the fire. Instantly all imitated him, so that in
10 minutes there was not a spark to be seen. It had been more
fun to put out the fire by playing with snowballs.
Apr 1906 possibly
Baker & Bledsoe
Dr. Willard contrasts these men with Lincoln
The concluding paragraphs of Dr. Willards reminiscences,
given in his paper before the State Historical Society, related
to the arrest of himself and his father for assisting a fugitive
salve to escape in 1843. This was after they left Carrollton and
while they were living in Morgan County. They went to
Springfield and made an ineffectual attempt to employ a lawyer.
Edward D. Baker, Judge Stephen T. Logan and others declined. The
list of Springfield attorneys was exhausted, save one - Abraham
Lincoln - who they were advised was too little known to give
their cause the needed prestige.
In these closing paragraphs of Dr. Willards narrative, 2 of
the men mentioned had in the beginning of their manhood lived in
Carrollton. Edward D. Baker studied law here, and his partner
Moses O. Bledsoe, who was one of the pioneer lawyers of this
place. The third - Lincoln - was attorney at various times in
cases tried in court here. Dr. Willard says:
The first day of our search for an advocate I had remained
some hours in the office of Baker and Bledsoe several men came
in, among them a gaunt faced awkward long limbed man, who took a
law book from a case and sat down on a chair rather too low for
him. I noticed the long leg thrown back and doubled up under the
long thigh like that of a grasshopper. I wondered about his make
up. Someone called him Lincoln and he smilingly replied. I had
not heard the name before, but remembered the man for his
notable physical peculiarities.
In that office I saw at the same time 3 men, Lincoln, Baker,
and Bledsoe, whose future no one could have guessed, even with
the wildest imagination enlisted for the task. Bledsoe was of a
logical mind acute, learned, versatile, able and even powerful
in any field of thought except natural science, in which he was
untried. He had graduated at West Point then taught mathematics,
next studied theology and was ordained an Episcopal clergyman,
but turned to law. Before the Supreme Court, where the humor and
common sense of Lincoln and the eloquence of Baker would have
availed little, the logic of Beldsoe would have outdone Logan,
or have adorned that bench itself.
Had one who knew the 3 men been told that one of the 3 should
become the President of the U.S. and were he then bidden to
point him out, he would have said: Baker is not the man, for he
was born in England, besides eloquence doesn't win. See Clay and
Webster, and earlier, Fisher Ames and Pinckney. Lincoln will do
for Sangamon county or to go to Congress from this district, but
if the lightening of presidential nomination hits him, it will
hi the wrong man; he has more risk of being hit by the real
article. Bledsoe must be the man. But when we look back we see
it was the fate of Baker to share in a war with Mexico, to go to
a land yet to be snatched from that power, to become senator
from a region then tenanted by Indians and hunters only and to
lay down his life for the preservation of a nation into whose
allegiance he was not born.
Bledsoe was in 5 years to leave his law books to sink his
splendid powers in the humdrum of a professor of mathematics in
a southern university, gaining time to write 2 books, One a
theodicy to defend the glory of God, which was needless. the
other to defend the glory of Negro slavery which was vain. Then
when the trumpet called to arms, Colonel Bledsoe became
assistant secretary of war for the Confederacy, and went down
with it. He wrote books afterward, the most notable one being
entitled, Is Davis a Traitor?
But the third man, that ungainly, uneducated man what of him?
His fame is eternal. A thousand pens have written his history;
ten thousand tongues proclaim it. I need not. The man of the
great heart was found to be the man with the great brain, worthy
to rank with Washington, but better known and better loved for
to him God gave the courage, the spirit, the love, the wisdom
and the opportunity to save the nation.
17 Aug 1906
THIS WAS A BIG COUNTY
When the first white settlers set foot upon the soil of what
is now Greene County, it was a part a very small part-of Madison
County. In 1818 Madison County extended northward to the shores
of Lake Superior, and its western boundary nearly all the way
was the Mississippi River. If this country hadn't then under
township organization is with a member of the County Board from
each congressional township, that board would have exceeded in
size both houses of the present National Congress and some of
its members would have had to travel-on horseback, of course six
or seven hundred miles to attend its meetings at Edwardsville,
the county seat.
The interest that has been awake and the past year or two in
Illinois history has developed nothing of greater importance
than a set of twenty-three maps which I published in the
Illinois Blue Book for 1905, recently issued from the office of
Secretary of State to Rose. These maps show all the successive
changes of County names and boundaries from 1790 to the present
time.
In 1790 the aborigines of Greene County dealt within the
boundaries of St. Clair County, Northwest Territory. St. Clair
was then the only county lying exclusively within the present
lines of the state, and it occupied the southwest portion, from
the Illinois to the Ohio River. Three points were designated for
holding court in St. Clair County-Cahokia, Prairie du Rocher and
Kaskaskia.
In 1801 this became Indiana Territory, and St. Clair County
covered about nine tenths of what is now Illinois.
In 1812 St. Clair was reduced to modest proportions and Madison
County was formed, taking in everything north to Canada. Ninian
Edwards, governor of Illinois territory, designated the House of
Thomas Kirkpatrick as the seat of justice for the County.
Various changes were made in boundary lines, and other counties
were created, but this section remained a part of Madison County
until Greene was organized January 20th of 1821. The map
representing the state at that shows Greene County occupying the
present territory of this and Jersey counties, with the on
organized territory of Morgan, Scott and Macoupin also attached
to it. It was bounded by Sangamon, Montgomery and Madison
Counties and the Illinois River. Pike County organized the same
year, occupied all the state, north and west of the Illinois
River. Greene was the twenty-first County organized.
Morgan County was cut off from Greene in 1823, Macoupin County
in 1831, and Jersey in 1839.
These maps showing the history of Illinois counties constitutes
one of the most interesting features of the blue book, and it is
a matter of local interest that they were prepared by Stephen L.
Spear, chief clerk of the indexing Department and the secretary
of state's office; indeed, the compilation of the entire book of
over 700 pages was under his personal supervision. Mr. Spear was
a Greene County schoolteacher some years ago, and has numerous
friends here. In a prefatory note, Secretary of State Rose gave
credit to Mr. Hester and it is for whatever merit to the present
and past issues of the blue book may possess. The current is a
most complete and valuable book of reference of Illinois
political history, and it is so perfectly indexed that one may
get almost any desired information in a momentous pursuit.
02 Nov 1906
RUSSELL’S MEMOIRS
EXTRACTS FROM UNPUBLISHED VOLUME BY S. G. RUSSELL
Bluffdale Schools in the Early Part of the Last Century
Described by the
Late Pioneer – The Log School House of ‘34
The late Spencer G. Russell left to his eldest daughter, Mrs.
Pauline Lair, the manuscript volume of memoirs which he had
written. This manuscript abounds in incidents in his own life
and of pioneer days in Greene County. Mrs. Lair has kindly
consented to prepare a series of extracts from the volume for
The Patriot and these will appear from time to time in these
columns.
Mr. Russell’s father, referred to in the following sketch,
was Prof. John Russell, the pioneer editor, teacher and author,
whose home at Bluffdale was often sought by literary men from
the east.
I do not remember of ever having learned to read or count.
The first school I ever attended was kept by mother in a little
log office that father had built for a study an library.
In this school I read in Noah Webster’s elementary spelling
books in a class of little boys and girls.
They cut a log out of one end of the house for more light,
and over this opening was hung a board on leather hinges which
was let down during wet weather, and in good weather was propped
up with a stick.
I was very fond of going to school, for the company it
afforded me, rather than for any great desire for learning.
In 1830, mother taught school in the cabin Ed Pilcher built,
which was quite an expensive institution, compared with the
other school cabin. This was quite a large school. Lydia A. Day,
afterwards wife of Charles Robley, and mother of Arthur, Walter,
Henry and a whole generation more Robleys, was one of the oldest
scholars. She gave me a “Young Reader,” the first book of the
kind I ever had. It had in it the story and picture of “Justice
Moakley and the Cats” and the “Discontented Squirrel,” both of
which stories made a lasting impression on me during my whole
life. Also the, to me, wonderful poem of
“The old white hen with yellow legs,
That laid her _____ many ____
Which them the best the boys had taken
To put to _____ or fry with bacon.”
In this school was first used Pierpants National Reader in
which was published father’s famous article “The Venomous Worm,”
I used to listen to the older ones read of the horrid worm, and
wonder why folks were such fools as to go back and get bitten
again after having suffered so much from the first bite. I did
not get hold of the gist of the story.
A great many went to this school, of whom all but two or
three have passed over to the Great Majority. Three score years
ago!
About 1834, mother kept school in the front room of the house
that is my present home, where she taught two winters and
summers. Father taught one winter with a room full of young men.
At father’s school Louise Spencer, afterward my wife, and I
studied “Catharine Beecher’s Geography for My Children.” I was
wonderfully taken with it. Stephen had bought Louise one from a
peddler, and I gave father no rest until he sent by mail got me
one.
During mother’s school I read with the whole school in the
New Testament. A missionary society in the east had sent to
father a box of little red Testaments to distribute to the
western heathen. So the “big class”, in fact, all who were out
of the spelling book, read in these Testaments for want of other
readers. Father, on one occasion said publicly, “If you were not
my son, I would say you were the best reader in the class,”
which gratified me prodigiously.
Virginia Orr came to school. She was a bad one. Mother had
lots of trouble with her. Mother used to “pin ‘em up” when they
acted badly, that is pin some part of their dress to hers and
make them walk around with her. We thought it was awful to be
“pinned up”. She had Virginia “penned up” about half the time.
Virginia once said she “wished the whole school was dead and in
– heaven!” Mother told her “it was well she said heaven.” We all
knew she undoubtedly meant the other place.
Once she had a pin and was pointing it at Sam Haught when
Charlie Robley hit her arm and the pin went into Sam about an
inch. Sam squealed out “Miss Russell ! Miss Russell ! Virginia
