Carrollton Patriot Newspaper
18 Mar 1920
Greene County in 1820
100 years ago this spring Greene County Farmers that is
Farmers in what is now Greene County had enough to discourage
them, but if they were discouraged, History does not record the
fact. There was no fly in their wheat, for they had no wheat. In
fact they hadn't much of any thing except a few cattle and
horses that we're starving because there was nothing to eat.
here is what the history of Greene County status of the winter
of 1819 – 1820 and the condition of the pioneers of this
section.
"The winter of 1819- 20 proved to be an unusually severe one.
The grass of the prairies had been destroyed by fires lighted by
the Indians or hunters and much of the undergrowth in the woods
was killed by the same element. Before the close of the winter
the provision is gathered by the settlers for their stock, from
places where it had escaped the ravages of the fire, gave out
and as they were compelled to cut down trees from the boughs of
which the cattle and horses could procure a scanty supply of
food. Many of these wandered away and where lost, while some of
them died from the effects of hunger and cold. The supply of
food for the settlers and their families proved to be sufficient
yet their suffering from the cold was often intense.
Seymour Kellogg, who lived in the Manvaisterre Settlement (now
in Morgan County) in his search for some of his stock one
bitterly cold night, lost his way and saved his life only by
walking vigorously between two trees standing several rods
apart. he did not dare to leave his track during the night for
fear of being irrecoverably lost. he didn't know how far he was
from either his own or his brothers cabin. And the appearance of
daylight he found himself about 2 miles from a latter place, to
which he immediately repaired. His feet were badly frozen during
the night, making him a cripple for several months.
Notwithstanding, these hardships, the residence of the County
were not discouraged, but went to work in the spring with
renewed vigor. We hear of very large accessions to the
population of the County in 1820, an important strides were made
forward. Immigrants poured in from nearly every direction, and
almost every township in the County contained one or more
families before the close of the year. if had half The county
was not organized until the following year and a historian means
there were settlers in nearly every one of the present
townships.)
Among those whom we find recorded as arriving during the year
1820 are Jacob Bowman, Martin Bowman, Silas Eldred, Mrs. Ruth
Eldred, south and West of Carrollton; John Greene and James
Whitlock near Kane; John Lorton, Robert Lorton, Thomas
( Page #
3 Missing)
Page 4
A tract of valuable prairie and timber along the north side of
apple where he soon accumulated property and money and enough to
supply all reasonable wants.
Robert Whitaker made a home on the Andy Johnson farm during
this year, and from him Whitaker’s creek, the stream flowing
from the prairie a few miles west of Greenfield, into Apple
Creek was named.
22 Apr 1920
Train to Work
Shall the public schools undertake vocational training? This
question, like most others, had 2 sides in the discussion given
by the Current Topic Club last Thurs. night even though most the
members admitted that they didn’t know anything about the
subject.
Principal Keith Purl read a paper on “Vocational Education &
Continuation Schools”, giving quite a full outline of what is
being done in these lines.
Vocational Education, said Mr Purl, aims to meet the needs of
the manual worker in the trades & industries.
Vocational guidance is a recent development in education
which aims to give to parents and children information with
regard to trades and other occupations, and the best method of
entering or preparing to enter them. It’s not an attempt to find
employment for young people, although this is sometimes done.
Mr Purl told something of the work of the Federal Commission
on national aid to Vocational Education which in 1914
recommended that Federal Aid be given to this work for a number
of reasons, among them that there’s pressing need for Vocational
Education, that the problem is too extensive for any except a
national agency, and that the states are too poor to attempt a
solution.
Continuation schools are provided in IL. By a law recently
passed. This law requires school boards to establish part-time
or day continuation schools for persons in employment and
requires such persons to attend these schools.
10 Jun 1920
That Paper About Greene
Read by Editor Bradshaw before the Illinois State Historical
Society at Springfield last week.
Illinois is a domain comprising 102 counties. Each of these
counties has within its borders towns, villages and communities,
and these in turn are made up of homes - the homes of the
people, the seven or eight million people who really constitute
the State of Illinois
The early history of Illinois is a composite photograph of
life in these scattered communities and isolated cabins that
made the pioneer counties of the state. There were 15 of these
counties in 1818, when Illinois became a state. Four more came
into existence the following year, and at the session of the
General Assembly during Jan. & Feb. 1821, there was increased
activity in this line, and seven new counties were formed. The
Centennial Anniversary of these counties in the order which they
were formed are Lawrence, Greene, Sangamon, Pike, Hamilton,
Montgomery and Fayette.
This paper is to deal with the early history of one of the
seven - Greene County.
During the spring of the year 1820 several house and barn
raisings took place between Apple and Macoupin Creeks, a region
that, two years before, had been the uttermost frontier of
civilization in the then newly-born State of Illinois. During
the summer of that same year there was an occasional "hoss race"
within that same territory. In the fall there were husking bees
and hunting frolics. These house and barn raisings, these horse
races, these husking bees and hunting parties provided the only
means by which pioneers of that region could exercise their
natural bent as social beings. It was 35 or 40 miles to
Edwardsville, the nearest town and their county seat. Not a
church nor a school house between the Apple and the Macoupin,
nor for many miles in either direction beyond those streams.
Hence the typical social gatherings of a pioneer settlement -
the house raisings and husking bees - were well attended
functions. Always there was one topic for talk wherever a few of
these hardy pioneers gathered. It was the growth and future
development of their sparse settlement into a political unit of
the sovereign State with a capital of their own - a county, with
a county seat located somewhere between Apple and Macoupin
Creeks.
The Spring and Summer of 1820 brought many accessions to the
scattered settlements of that region, and the rapid growth gave
weight to the agitation for forming a new county. The second
General Assembly of the State of Illinois assembled at Vandalia,
December 4, 1820. The future county, of course, had no
representative in that body, and whether it sent any lobbyists
over the bridle paths to the new state capital or not, can only
be conjectured. Probably that we unnecessary. At any rate, a
bill to create the new county was introduced early in the
session, was passed January 18 and approved January 20, 1821.
The act creating the county bestowed upon it the name of
"Greene," in honor of Gen. Nathaniel Greene of Revolutionary
fame. The boundaries as then defined included all of the present
counties of Greene and Jersey, and to this territory was added
that of the present counties of Macoupin, Morgan and Scott. Thus
the county became "Mother Greene" to a bevy of buxom daughters.
Miss Morgan was the first to set up housekeeping for herself in
1823; Macoupin followed in 1829 and Miss Jersey became a matron
in 1839. Little Miss Scott remained in the Morgan household
until '39, and then followed the example of her sisters.
The forming of Greene County brought on a contest for the
location of the county capital. The contest was short, sharp and
decisive. One February 20, 1821 - just a month after the county
was created by enactment, the fine commissioners who had been
named in the act met at a lone cabin on the prairie and
proceeded to consider the eligible sites.
There were several of these. One was a beautiful mound about
3 miles Southwest of the present town of Carrollton. Fifty years
afterward a somewhat florid description was written by a man who
remembered it as it then was, untouched by the hand of man, and
he declard that "the sun in all his wanderings had seldom shone
upon a lovelier spot of earth since the day on which the flaming
sword was placed at the gates of Eden." The owner of that spot,
Thos. Hobson, confident that no other proposed site could
compete with his, had laid out a town on that mound and had it
named Mt. Pleasant.
But Hobson was an Englishman who had come out from his native
country only a short time before. The War of 1812 had ended, but
it left more or less bitterness rankling in the breasts of these
pioneers whose lines and homes had been menaced by the Indian
allies of the British. This probably had something to do with
the result of that contest. But perhaps a greater factor in it
was the personality of the man who won.
The official report of the Commissioners, as it appears in
the records of the county states that "after examining the most
eligible situation in said county, giving due weight and
attention to the considerations set forth as to present the
future population, etc." that had concluded that the most
suitable place for said seat of justice was a point 88 poles
South of the N.E. corner of Section 22, Township 10 North, Range
12 West of the Third Principal Meridian.
The land thus described and selected was owned by one of the
Commissioners, but it is said that he refused to vote on fixing
the site. The other four were unanimous. The man who did not
vote and whose land became the site of Green County's capital,
was Thomas Carlin, afterward sixth Governor of Illinois.
Local historian have been content to add that, after the
decision had been made, one of the Commissioners paced fifty
yards to the West and said, "Here let the Court House be built,"
that the town was immediately laid out and named Carrollton.
Many have since wondered why the town was not named in honor
of its founder, and why, a few years later, the county seat of
Macoupin was apparently so named. Several years ago a descendent
of Governor Carlin - a man who had never been in the West - came
out to visit the scene of his grandfather's pioneering. Quite
logically he steered his course to Carlinville, and was puzzled
to find there no trace of ancestral records. I do not know why
Carlinville was so named; why Carrollton was not is, partly at
least, a matter of tradition only.
We can imagine those four other Commissioners suggesting that
the town be named for Mr. Carlin, and we imagine him declining
the honor with the modesty of real greatness. "Suggest a name,
then," they no doubt said to him. And it is fairly well
established that he did suggest the name. Himself a pioneer, he
greatly admired those earlier pioneers who laid the foundations
of a nation in the Declaration of Independence, and he
especially loved the name of that signer of the document who, in
order that no British high executioner would be put to the
trouble of enquiring, wrote down his name - "Charles Carroll of
Carrollton."
And so he gave the town a name, beautiful in itself, honored
in history, and significant of courage and fidelity to
principal.
Perhaps it would be well at this point to pause a bit in the
story itself, an introduce the case of characters in this little
drama, "The Birth" - not of a Nation - but "of a County."
When the Federal Government was unable to send troops to
protect the settlers in Illinois from Indian atrocities,
encouraged by the British during the war of 1812, the settlers
themselves organized as Rangers. One of the camps was at
Edwardsville. "For several years," says Clement Clapp in his
history of Greene County, "these brave determined men rode over
the bare and silent prairies for hundreds of miles, now chasing
a band of fleeing savages, now hurrying to the defense of a
threatened settlement. They were almost always constantly in the
saddle, rarely slept under a roof, and exercise almost super
human viligance in keeping the red men at bay. They were
familiar with every feature of Indian warfare and their deeds of
daring and endurance have been made the theme of many a
thrilling poem or romantic tale."
30 Sep 1920
C. J. Weis and H. C. Johnson bought the store of Kessinger &
Marks at Wrights.
