Cass County, Illinois - Chapter 28: Bluff Springs Precinct, 1915

Chapter 28: Bluff Springs Precinct

OLD BLUFF HOUSE INN - BEARDSTOWN AN EARLY MARKET - FARMERS AND DROVERS TRAVELED LONG DISTANCES - VOTING DISTRICT FORMED IN 18S2 - BLUFF SPRINGS NAMED - NOTED GRAIN SHIPPING POINT - EARLY SETTLERS - FIRST POSTMASTER AND STATION AGENT - MANY GERMAN SETTLERS - CHURCHES - METHODIST EPISCOPAL - GERMAN LUTHERAN - WELL WATERED - LOST CREEK - CLEAB CREEK - PICTURESQUE SCENERY - BEAUTIFUL VIEW OF THE ILLINOIS VALLEY FROM THE HIGH BLUFFS.

Old Bluff House Inn

The precinct of Bluff Springs is one of the newer voting districts of the county as compared with the others, although, for a time an old house, now near the center of the district, was a voting place, it being designated for a short period as such for Monroe Precinct, which then extended from the south line of the county north beyond the State road from Springfield to Beardstown. At a very early day, even long before Cass County was created, a large house stood on the north side of the public highway, on the present site of the splendid farm residence of Charles Jones, about a quarter of a mile east of the collection of houses known as Bluff Springs. It was known as the Bluff House, and served as an inn or tavern. Travelers often stopped there for their meals although they were only six miles from Beardstown, and there also stopped the drovers and farmers who were driving their hogs to the market at Beardstown. In that day, hogs were driven along the highways, from away beyond the central part of the state, as Beardstown was the nearest and best market for them, where

_ large packing houses had been erected and thousands of hogs were annually slaughtered and the products packed and shipped by boat on the Illinois River to St. Louis, and even as far south as New Orelans, there being no railroads at that time, and for many years after the formation of Cass County. One of the first schoolhouses in the county was erected near this inn, and school was kept up from that day on through the evolutions of the school system until the present method was adopted, and the school edifice now in the district was erected.

Voting District Formed In 1882

The precinct was formed as a voting district September 9, 1882, and Louis Carls, Oliver Decker and C. T. Jockisch were appointed the first election judges. Parts of Monroe, Beardstown, Virginia, Arenzville and Hickory precincts were taken to form the new district. The first voting place was at the grain office of Oliver Decker.

Bluff Springs Named

A station for the railroad was established at Bluff Springs, and that name given to it when the Springfield and Illinois Southeastern Railroad was laid through there in 1871. It is now the Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railroad. The railroad ran south of the old State road nearly a quarter of a mile, and changed somewhat the subsequent location of the residences and stores. One store yet remains beside the old highway. There was never any organization as a village or town, but some of the ground was platted into lots, along the highway running north and south, intersecting the main highway east and west. The railroad ran through a part of the county farm, and later the county commissioners platted a small tract of the county farm and sold the lots. The county almshouse stands a half mile north of the railroad station and is a very imposing looking building seen from the west as the hamlet is approached, either by the railroad or the public highway. The county farm and almshouse have been previously spoken of in the chapter on county buildings and property.

There are two general stores for the accommodation of the people of the surrounding country, and the residents of Bluff Springs. The Modern Woodmen of America a number of year's

Noted Grain Shipping Point

Bluff Springs Precinct contains within its borders some of the most productive soil in the county. The acreage of corn and wheat is annually very large, and the station of Bluff Springs is a noted shipping point; more than 125.000 bushels of wheat are annually shipped from that point, and over 150,000 bushels of corn. There are two elevators located here, but they now both belong to the Bluff Springs Eleyator Company, composed of a number of enterprising farmers of that place. At the present time the business of the company is in charge of Charles W. Parry, a native of Bluff Springs Precinct, and a young man of most exemplary habits and business ability. He has just closed a four-year term as deputy county clerk of this county and was especially efficient in that position.

Early Settlers

One of the earliest settlers of Bluff Springs was Thomas C. Clark, who was born in Pennsylvania, February 24, 1785. From there he moved to Barren County. Ky., where he married Miss Julia Ann King, of Greene County, Tenn., April 23. 1807. They moved to Tennessee and lived there for about seventeen years and then came to Illinois, and after trying several locations finally settled at Bluff Springs in 1846. John Ik. Clark, a son, is still living at Bluff Springs, and he was born in what was then Monroe, while the territory was yet a portion of Morgan County, May 14, 1828S. Another son, an older brother of John K. Clark, Thomas Clark, was born in Tennessee, September 14, 1820. and came with his parents to Cass County while it was vet a part of Morgan County. He and his brother John obtained such learning as they could in the primitive schools of their neighborhood, and later went to Mount Pleasant, Iowa. where they took a four-year course in the schools of that place. They were above the average of intelligence. and each taught school in Cass County for several years very successfully. Thomas Clark died November S, 1878, from an attack of lockjaw caused by his stepping upon a rusty nail which penetrated his boot to his foot. He left several children, one of them being the wife of F. X. Pond, a prosperous farmer of Bluff Springs Precinct; and another daughter is the wife of a very well-to-do farmer, Cornelius Woodward, of Monroe Precinct.

Another early settler was James Buck, who came from Ohio in 1839, and entered the fortyacre tract of land on which the almshouse stands. The original patent of this land, signed by President James Kk. Polk, is in the county clerk's office at Virginia. Mr. Buck later moved to Beardstown.

Dr. Ephraim Rew, the first physician to locate in the west part of the county, moved out from Beardstown to a farm in section 29, township 1S, range 11, in what is now Bluff Springs Precinct, in 1833, and remained there until his death, which occurred May 28, 1842.

John Decker, another early settler, was born in Germany and came to Cass County in 1885. His son, Oliver Decker, was born near Bluff Springs in 1839. For one term he was county commissioner of Cass County.

Others here at an early date were as follows: Charles G. Jockisch, born in Germany, and his two sons, Gothalf and Charles T., also born in Germany, and his grandson, William Jockisch, who came with him to America in 1838, and resided near Bluff Springs until his death.

Louis A. Jones was the first postmaster and station agent of Bluff Springs. His father, Luther A. Jones, operated the ferry across the Illinois River at Beardstown for thirteen years, hut later moved to Marshall County, Ill., and there farmed until his death. Louis A. Jones was the father of Charles Jones, who now lives on the site of the old Bluff House.

Another pioneer was Lycurgus Lee, born in Maryland, September 14, 1827, who came with his father in 1832, to Cass County. Ernest Arnold came here from Germany in 1840. It will be seen by the list of names and their nationality that Germany contributed to this part of the country a large number of its early

There are two churches in the precinct, the first one built being the Methodist Episcopal, which stands a half mile south of the station. The present church edifice was built in 1888. The German Lutherans built a very neat and

The eastern portion of the precinct is rough, broken land, but has many productive farms, the high bluffs terminating at the eastern part of the village, and they overlook a beautiful portion of the Illinois valley. The water courses of the precinct are Lost Creek and Clear Creek. They cross from east to west, Lost Creek running along the north side of the railroad, and cutting the village about the center. Clear Creek lies further south. Both finally empty their waters into the Illinois River.