Cass County, Illinois - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 11 of those read), 1882

PHILADELPHIA PRECINCT - DESCRIPTIVE - TOPOGRAPHY AND PHYSICAL FEATURES-ORGANIZATION AS A PRECINCT - THE SETTLEMENT OF THE WHITES - THEIR LIFE ON THE FRONTIER - PIONEER IMPROVEMENTS - CHURCHES, SCHOOLS, ETC. - PHILADELPHIA AND LANCASTER - A LOST CITY, ETC.

FANCY yourself standing upon yonder swell of the ground fifty years ago. It is June, say; your senses are regaled with the beauty of the landscape, the singing of the birds, the fragrance of the air, wafting grateful odors from myriads of flowers of every imaginable variety of size, shai^e and hue, blushing in the sunbeam and opening their petals to drink in its vivifying rays. While gazing enraptured, you descry in the distance a something moving slowly over the prairies, and through the forest and among the gorgeous flowers. As the object nears you, it proves to be a wagon, a "- prairie schooner," drawn by a team of oxen, containing a family and their earthly all. They are moving to the "far West" (now almost the center of civilization), in quest of a home. At length they stop, and, on the margin of a grove rear their lone cabin, amid the chattering of birds, the bounding of deer, the hissing of serpents, and the barking of wolves. For all the natives of these wilds look upon the intruders with a jealous eye, and each in his own way forbids any encroachments upon his fondlycherished home, and his long and undisputed domain. From the same point of observation, look again in mid-summer, in autumn, and in winter. And lo! fields are enclosed, waving with grain, and ripening for the harvest. Look yet again, after the lapse of fifty years, and what do you see? The waste has become a fruitful field, adorned with ornamenal trees, enveloping in beauty commodious and even elegant dwellings. In short, you behold a land flowing with milk and honey (figuratively speaking), abounding in spacious churches, schools and academies, and other temples of learning; a land of industry, and wealth, checkered with railroads and public thoroughfares. A land teeming with life and annually sending off surplus funds with hundreds, not to say thousands, of its sons to people newer regions beyond. A land whose resources and improvements are so wonderful as to stagger belief, and surpass the power of description. It reads like a magic story, like a tale of enchantment, and yet, it is the true history of our own country - our great West. Philadelphia Precinct lies east of Virginia, and is one of the most recently created in the county. It was made from a part of Oregon, Lancaster, Virginia and Princeton Precincts, and embraces about twenty-four square miles. Like Virginia and Princeton, it is a fine body of land, lies well, and was originally both prairie and timbered land, the prairie predominating. It is bounded on the north by Virginia and Oregon Precincts; on the east by Ashland (formerly Lancaster); on the south by Morgan County; on the west by Princeton and Virginia Precincts, and lies in township 17, and range 9, west of the third principal meridian. It has but few natural streams, and they are very small. Little Indian and Cox Creeks are all that are laid down on the map. The Springfield division of the Ohio and Mississippi passes through the precinct, and the station affords a shipping point for the surplus products of the surrounding country.

Philadelphia Precinct, as we have said, is but a newly created division of the county. It was organized September 6, 1876, and was formed principally out of what was formerly known as Lancaster Precinct, though a small portion was taken from each, Virginia, Oregon and Princeton Precincts. The remainder of Lancaster was called Ashland, and thus old Lancaster Precinct was blotted out of existence, just as whole States in Europe are often blotted out in some war or revolution. From its ruins have arisen Ashland and Philadelphia, two precincts that will compare favorably with any in Cass County, in fine land, wealth and general prosperity.

The settlement of Philadelphia Precinct is so interwoven with that of Ashland, Virginia and Princeton, of which it was a part, until so recently that little here need be said upon the subject. Indeed, there can be but little said, without repeating what has been said elsewhere, of the setilement of the surrounding community. Many of the early set. tiers mentioned in Virginia, Oregon and Princeton, were residents of those parts now embraced in this.

Among the early settlers in this section were the Cunninghams, Redmons, and others, who have already been mentioned as settiinoin Sugar Grove, and the other bodies of timber which were in the present limits of Philadelphia Precinct. James Davis, William Crow and Eli Cox were also early settlers in this region. But, as already stated, the names of the early settlers of this entire region have been given in other chapters of this volume, and it issuperflurous to recapit- \ilate them. As the larger portion of the present precinct was prairie, it was not settled so early as the timber portion of the county, save in the few small groves it contained. The early settlers of Cass County, as well as of the entire State of Illinois, were mostly from a timbered countrj-, and believed that the great prairies would never be fit for anything but pasture. Hence, it was not until the timber land was all occupied, and farms had sometimes changed hands several, times, that settlers begun to venture out on the prairies. Slowly at first, they occupied the vast plains, and that too, near the timber. But time and experience soon proved the merits of the prairie lands for agricultural purposes, and as this knowledge dawned upon the people, tbey lost no time in securing prairie land, with as much zeal as they had avoided them. Thus, family after family came into Philadelphia, until the entire precinct was occupied.

The young men and women of the present time have no conception of the mode of life among the early settlers of this country from forty to sixty years ago. In nothing are the habits and mnnners of the people in any respects similar to those a half century ago. We are at a loss where to begin, so as to give the youth of to-day anything like a just idea of this matter. The clothing, the dwellings, the diet, social customs - in fact, everything, has undergone a total revolution. The houses were all built of logs, the cracks filled with " chinks," and then daubed over with a mortar made of clay or " prairie dirt." The floor was the smooth earth or was made of rough " puncheons," and the spaces between these were often such that the younger children had to exercise great care not to step through these crevices. The roof was made of " boards," as they were called by the western people, but known among the Yankees as " shakes," and when put down, were held to their places by weight-poles. The fire-place occupied one end of the cabin, and is described elsewhere in this volume. Tlie articles used in cooking were as few and simple as can be imagined. An oven or skillet, a frying-pan, an iron pot or kettle, with occasionally a coifee-pot, completed the outfit of the best furnished kitchen. Stoves were entirely unknown, and all the cooking was done in and around the fire-place, a fact that our modern young ladies would not relish, as it would burn and spoil their pretty faces.

Among the clothing of the pioneers, everything was plain, simple, and in conformity with the strictest economy. This was not only true of their dwellings, furniture and provisions, but also of their clothing. The men mostly wore hunting-shirts and pants of buckskin, and caps of coon or fox skin, while both sexes wore moccasins instead of shoes. Many were the expedients devised by the prudent dames in the matter of clothing; for ever since that wonderful triumph of millinery art - the construction of an entire wardrobe from fig-leaves, devised long years ago in the world's early dawn, woman has been very gifted in laying plans, and adopting expedients in the matter of clothing. But, unfortunately for her skill and industry, the country afforded but little more in the line of feminine wearing apparel than did Eden in the days of our first parents. Cotton and flax were produced for some years, but they could not be raised to do much good on account of wolves and bears. Hence the people had no choice between adopting expedients and appearing in a somewhat modified phase of the Highland costume. The tools and agricultural implements were on a par with everything else. The ground was broken with wooden mold-board plows, and the corn cultivated with hoes and " bull-tongue " or shovel plows. The teams wore piincipally oxen, both for plowing and hauling. But these times of self-denial and privation are long since past. Upon the very face of nature the rolling years have writ en their record, and the wilderness has been transformed into a scene of loveliness. The oxmill has given place to the steam mill, while improvement in farm machinery has kept

The people of Philadelphia worshiped in the early churches of Princeton and Virginia Precincts. There is but one church within the limits of the precinct at present, at least so far as we could learn, and that is the Christian Church, at the village of Philadelphia. It originally stood in Princeton Precinct, but the membership dwindled down so small, that the church was finally moved to the village of Philadelphia. There is no regular pastor, we are informed, at present, but a Sunday school is kept up, and occasional preaching by visiting ministers.

The first schools of the precinct, like the first churches, are described in other chapters, and need no repetition here. There are now some four or five school houses in the precinct, good, substantial edifices, in which schools are maintained during the usual terms each year.

The old town of Lancaster, like the precinct which forme ly bore that name, has passed away, and nothing now remains to show where once it stood. It wis laid out by Jo, n Dutch, who had one hundred acres surveyed into lots in the nort' east quarter of the northwest quarter of section 25, township 17 and range 9 west. It was surveyed a d platted by William French, County Survey, r. The entire plat was conveyed to Erastus W. Palmer, May 8, 1837, for $400. The town was vacated by A. Dutch, June 6, 1843. The Lancaster post-office continued until the abandonment of Philadelphia Plat in 1881.

John Dutch, the original proprietorof Lancaster, was an old sea captain, and like most of that class, was very profane. Sometime after laying out his town, 1 e went back ta Boston, whence he had come, and begged contributions to build a church, as he .said, to Christianize the heathenish wester. i people.

He raised considerable money and came back, and really did build a cliurch, which was used as such for many years, and then moved away and changed into a barn. Mr. Dutch had been very wealthy, but had lost most of his riches. He had saved enough, however, to enter a la ge body of land in Cass County. He built a fine two-story hotel, where he laid out his town on the ^p^ingfield and Beardstown State road. He kept tavern here for a good many years, but his town never grew to very large proportwns, and as we have said, was finally vacated, and the very spot whereon it stood, is known to but few of the citizens of the county.

Philadelphia was laid out on the school section (16) of township 17, range 9, and the plat recorded July 11, 1836. Archibald Job qualified as trustee to section 16, July 17, 1846, and the plat of the town was made by him as trustee. One of the first business houses of the place, was a grocery store kept by a man named Miller McLane. The town, at one time, was quite a business place and had an extensive grain trade. But the building of the railroad throusrh Virjjinia drew much of the business to that point, and Philadelphia steadily declined from that time.

There is now one store, one wagon shop, one blacksmith shop, and still quite a grain market. There is one church of the Christian denomination, which has already been noticed.

This comprises a brief sketch of Philadelphia, from the time of its organization and settlement, aside from what has been given in other chapters. It may be that there are repetitions, from the causes given in the preceding pages, but, we think, to no great extent.