Jefferson County, Illinois - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 2 of those read), 1883

INTRODUCTORY - GEOLOGY AND ITS PRACTICAL VALUE - HOW THOROUGHLY TO EDUCATE THE FARMERS - WHY THEY SHOULD UNDERSTAND THE GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS OF THE LAND THEY TILL - AGE OF THE EARTH ACCORDING TO THE RESEARCH OF THE GEOLOGISTS - LOCAL GEOLOGY - CONFIGURATIONSOILS AND TIMBER - MINERALS AND MINERAL SPRINGS - BUILDING M VTERIALS, ETC.

THERE is no question of such deep interest as the geological history of that particular portion of the country in which we make om- homes. The people of Southern Illinois are an agricultural people in their pursuits. Their first care is the soil and climate, and it is in them they may find an almost inexhaustible fund of knowledge, that will ever put money in their coffers. All mankind are deeply interested in the soil. From it comes all life, all beauty, pleasure, wealth and enjoyment. Of itself, it may not be a beautiful thing, but from it comes the fragrant flower, the golden fields, the sweet blush of the maiden's cheek, the flash of the lustrous eye, that is more powerful to subdue the heart of obdurate man than an army with banners. From it spring the groat, rich cities, whose towers, and temples, and minarets kiss the early morning sun, and whose ships, with their precious cargoes, fleck every sea. In short, it is the nourishing mother whence comes our high civilization - the wealth of nations, the joys and exalted pleasures of life.

The corner-stone upon which all life rests is the farmer, who tickles the earth, and it laughs with the rich harvests that so bountifully bless mankind. Who, then, should be so versed in the knowledge oE the soil as the farmer? What other information can be so valuable to him as the mastery of the science of geology, that much of it, at least, as applies to the portion of the earth where he has cast his fortunes and cultivates the soil ? We talk of educating the farmer, and ordinarily this means to send the boys to college, to acquire what is termed a classical education, and they come back, perhaps, as graduates, as incapable of telling the geological story of ,thoir father's farm as of describing the color and shape of last year's clouds. How much more of practical value it would have been to the young man had he never looked into the classics, and instead thereof had taken a few practical lessons in the local geology that have told him the story of the soil around him, and enabled him to comprehend how it was formed, its different qualities and from whence it came and its constituent elements. The farmer grows to be an old man, and he will tell you he has learned to be a good farmer only by a long life of laborious experiments; and if you should tell him that these experiments had made him a scientific farmer, he would look with a good deal of contempt upon your supposed effort to poke ridicule at him. He has taught himself to regard the word " science" as the property only of bookworms and cranks. He does not realize that every step in farming is a purely scientific operation, because science is made by experiments and investigations. An old farmer may examine a soil and tell you that it is adapted to wheat or corn, that it is warm, or cold and heavy, or a few other facts that jhis long experience has taught him, and to that extent he is a scientific farmer. He will tell you that his knowledge has cost him much labor, and many sore disappointments. Suppose that in his youth a well -digested chapter on the geological history, that would have told him in the simplest terms, all about the land he was to cultivate, how invaluable the lesson would have been, and how much in money value it would have proved to him. In other words, if you could give your boys a practical education, made up of a few lessons pertaining to those subjects that immediately concern their lives, how invaluable such an education might be, and how many men would thus be saved the pangs and penalties of ill-directed lives.

The parents often spend much money in the education of their children, and from this they build gi-eat hopes upon their future that are often blasted, not through the fault, always, of the child, but through the error of the parent in not being able to know in what real, practical education consists. If the schools of the country, for instance, could devote one of the school months in each year to rambling over the hills and the fields, and gathering practical lessons in the geology and botany of the section of country in which the children were born and reared, how incomparably more valuable and useful the time thus spent would be to them in after life, than would the present mode of shutting out the sunshine of life, and spending both life and vitality in studying metaphysical mathematics, or the most of the other text-books, that impart nothing that is worth the carrying home to the child's stock of knowledge. At all events, the chapter in the county's history, or in the history of any community or country, that tells its geological formation, is of first importance to all its people, and if properly prepared it will become a soui'ce of great interest to all, and do much to disseminate a better education among the people, and thus be a perpetual blessing to the community.

The permanent effects of the soil on the people are as strong and certain as they are upon the vegetation that springs from it. It is a maxim in geology that the soil and its underlying rocks forecast unerringly to the trained eye the character of the people, the number and the quality of the civilization of those who will, in the coming time, occupy it. Indeed, so close are the relations of the geology and the people that this law is plain and fixed, that a new country may have its outlines of history written when first looked upon; and it is not, as so many suppose, one of those deep, abstruse subjects that are to be given over solely to a few great investigators and thinkers, and to the masses must forever remain a sealed book. Our }ouths may learn the important outlines of the geology of their country with no more difliculty than they meet in mastering the multiplication table or the simple rule of three. And we make no question that a youth need not possess one-half of the mental activity and shrewdness in making a fair geologist of himself that he would find was required of him to become a skillful manipulator of cards or a successful jockey.

On the geological structure of a country depend the pursuits of its inhabitants, and the genius of its civilization. Agriculture is the outgrowth of a fertile soil; mining results from mineral resources, and from navigable rivers spring navies and commerce. Every great branch of ^industry requires, for its successful development, the cultivation of kindred arts and sciences. Phases of life and modes of thought are thus induced, which give to different communities and States characters as various as the diverse rocks that underlie them. In like manner it may be shown that their moral and intellectual qualities depend on material conditions. Where the soil and subjacent rocks are profuse in the bestowal of wealth, man is indolent and effeminate; where effort is required to live, he becomes enlightened and virtuous. A perpetually mild climate and bread growing upon the trees will produce only ignorant savages. The heaviest misfortune that has so long environed poor, persecuted Ireland has been her ability to produce the potato, and thus subsist wife and children upon a small patch of ground. Statistics tell us that the number of marriages are regulated by the price of corn, and the true philosopher has discovered that the invention of gunpowder did more to civilize the world than any one thing in its history.

Geology traces the history of the earth back through successive stages of development to its rudimental condition in a state of fusion. The sun, and the planetary system that revolves around it, were originally a common mass, that became separated in a gaseous state, and the loss of heat in a planet reduced it to an elastic state, and thus it commenced to write its own history, and place its records upon these imperishable books, where the geologist may go and read the strange, eventful story. The earth was a wheeling ball of fire, and the cooling eventually formed the exterior crust, and in the slow process of time prepared the way for the animal and vegetable life it now contains. In its center, the fierce flames still rage with undiminished energy. Volcanoes are outlets for these deep-seated fires, where are generated those tremendous forces, an illustration of which is given in the eruptions of Vesuvius, which has thrown a jet of lava, resembling a column of flame, 10,000 feet high. The amount of lava ejected at a single eruption fi'om one of the volcanoes of Iceland has been estimated at 40,HOO,000,- Ol)0 tons, a quantity sufficient to cover a large city with a mountain as high as the tallest Alps. Our world is yet constantly congealing, just as the process has been constantly going on for billions of years, and yet the rocky crust that rests upon this internal fire is estimated to be only between thirty and forty miles in thickness. In the silent (Jepths of the stratified rocks are the former creation of plants and animals, which lived and died during the slow, dragging centuries of their formation. These fossil remains are fragments of history, which enable the geologist to extend his researches far back into the realms of the past, and not only determine their former modes of life, but study the contemporaneous history of their rocky beds, and group them into systems. And such has been the profusion of life, that the gi'eat limestone formations of the globe consist mostly of animal remains, cemented by the infusion of animal matter. A large part of the soil spread over the earth's surface has been elaborated in animal organisms. First, as nom'ishment, it enters into the structure of plants, and forms vegetable tissue; passing thence, as food, into the animal, it becomes endowed with life, and when death occurs it returns into the soil and imparts to it additional elements of fertility.

The realization of great defects in the education of our young farmers and of their losses and disappointments, and even disasters, in the pursuit of their occupation of tilling the earth, that come of their neglect in early education and training, promjats ns to present a subject that many of our readers will consider dry and uninteresting. The views of the writer are not visionary, or mere theories drawn from books. Born and reared on a farm, with nearly a quarter of a century's experience in tilling the soil, qualifies him to tell, with as much facility as Horace Greeley, what " he knows about farming." The most inportant subject to all mankind to-day is how to get for the young people the best education; how to fit our youths for the life struggle before them. Agassiz was (^nce appealed to by some New England horse-breeders in regard to developing horses, and ti)ld them it was not a question of equestrianism, but one of rocks. To most men the reply would have been almost meaningless, yet it was full of wisdom. It signified that certain rock formations that un. derlie the soil would insure a certain growth of grasses and water, and the secret of the perfect horse lay here.

That the reader may gather here lessons in the knowledge of the rocks that are spread out over the earth, we give in their order the difiierent groups and systems in the simplest form we can present them, as gathered from the geologists. We only deem it necessary to explain that all rocks are either igneous or stratified; the former meaning melted by fire, and the latter, sediment deposited in water. Their order, commencing with the lowest stratified rocks and ascending. are as follows:

The Laurentian system is the lowest and oldest of the stratified rocks. From the efi"ects of great heat, it has assumed, to some extent, the character of the igneous rocks below, but still retains its original lines of stratification, A principal eftect of the great heat to which its rocks were exposed is crystallization. The Laurentian system was formerly believed to be destitute of organic remains, but recent investigations have led to the discovery of animals, so low in the scale of organization as to be regarded as the first appearance of sentient existence. This discoverv, as it extends the origin of life backward through 30,000 feet of strata, may be regarded as one of the most important advances made in American geology.

The Huronian system, like the one that precedes it, and on which it rests, is highly crystalline. Although fossils have not been found in it, yet from its position, the inference is they once existed, and if they do not now, the great transforming power of heat has caused their obliteration. This, and the subjacent system, extend from Labrador southwesterly to the great lakes, and thence northwesterly toward the ..Lrctic Ocean, They derive their names from the St, Lawrence and Lake Htu-on, on the banks of which are found their principal outcrops. Their emergence from the ocean was the birth of the North American Continent. One face of the uplift looked toward the Atlantic and the other toward the Pacific, thus prefiguring the future shores of this great divison of the globe of which they are the germ.

The Silurian age, compared with the more stable formations of subsequent times, was one of commotion, in which lire and water played a conspicuous part. Earthquakes and volcanoes furrowed the yielding crust with ridges, and thiew up islands whose craggy summits, here and there, stood like sentinels above the murky deep which dashed against their shores. The present diversities of climate did not exist, as the temperature was mostly due to the escape of internal heat, which was the same over every part of the surface. As the radiation of heat, in future ages, declined, the sun became the controlling power, and zones of climate appeared as the result of solar domination. Uniform thermal conditions imparted a corresponding character to vegetable and animal life, and one universal fauna and flora extended from the equator to the poles. During the Silui'ian age. North America, like its inhabitants, was mostly submarine, as proved by wave lines on the emergino; lands.

The Devonian age is distinguished for the introduction of vertebrates, or the foui-th subkingdom of animal life, and the beginning of terrestrial vegetation. The latter appeared in two classes, the highest of the flowerless and the lowest of the flowering plants. The Lepidodendron, a noted instance of the former, was a majestic, upland forest tree, which, during the coal period, grew to a height of eighty feet, and had a base of more than thi'ee feet in diameter. Its description is quite poetical, and is as follows: Beautiful spiral flutings, coiling in opposite directions and crossing each other at fixed angles, carved the trunks and branches into rbomboidal eminences, each of which was scarred with the mark of a falling leaf. At an altitude of sixty feet, it sent ofi" arms, each separating into branchlets, covered with a needle-like foliage destitute of flowers. It grew, not by internal or external accretions, as plants of the present day, but, like the building of a monument, by additions to the top of its trunk. Mosses, rushes and other diminutive flowerless plants are now the only representatives of this cryptogamic vegetation, which so largely predominated in the early botany of the globe. Floral beauty and fragrance were not characteristic of the old Devonian woods. No bird existed to enliven their silent groves with song; no serpent to hiss in the fenny brakes, nor beast to pursue, with hideous yells, its panting prey.

The vertebrates consisted of fishes, of -which the Ganoids and Placoids were the principal groups. The former were the forerunners of the reptile, which in .many respects they closely resemble. They embraced a large number of species, many of which grew to a gigantic size; but, with the excejation of the gar and sturgeon, they have no living representative. The Placoids, structurally formed for advancement, still remain among the highest types of the present seas. The shark, a noted instance, judging from its fossil remains, must have attained 100 feet in length. Both groups lived in the sea, and if any fresh water animals existed, their remains have either perished or not been found. So numerous were the inhabitants of the ocean, that the Devonian has been styled the age of fishes. In their anatomical structure was foreshadowed the organization of man; reptiles, birds and mammals being the intermediate gradations.

The Carboniferous age opened with the deposition of widely extended mai-ine formations. Added to the strata previously doposited, the entire thickness in the region of the Alleghanies, now partially elevated, amounted to seven miles. The most prominent feature of the Carboniferous age was the formation of coal. Being carbonized vegetable tissue, the material f ui-nished for this puj-pose was the vast forest accumulation peculiar to the period. The coal-iields of Europe are estimated at 18,000 square miles, those of the United States at 150,000. In Illinois, three-fourths of the svirf ace are underlaid by beds of coal, and the State, consequently, has a greater area than any other member of the Union. The entire carboniferous system, including the coal beds and the intervening strata, in Southern Illinois, is 27,000 feet in thickness and in the northern part only 500 feet.

The Mammalian age witnessed the increaae of the mass of the earth above the ocean's level threefold, and next in regular succession was the age of Man, which commenced with the present geological conditions. These are the order of the earth's formation, simply given, to the time of the coming of man. Though the absolute time of his coming cannot be determined, he was doubtless an in habitant of the earth many thousands of years before he was sufficiently intelligent to preserve the records of his own history.

The present age still retains, in a diminished degi-ee of activity, the geological action we have briefly sketched. The oscillations of the earth's crust are still going on, perhaps as they ever have. As an evidence of this, it is a well-known fact that the coast of Greenland, on the western side, for a distance of 600 miles, has been slowly sinking for the past four huadi-ed years. Thus constantly have the bottoms of the oceans been lifted above the waters and the mountains sunk and became the beds of the sea. In the science of geology, this solid old earth and its fixed

Jefferson County is situated southeast of the intersection of the Ohio & Mississippi and the Illinois Central Railroads, and is bounded on the north by Marion County, on the east by Wayne and Hamilton, on the south by Franklin, on the west by Perry and Washington, and has an area of 576 square miles. It is estimated that at least four- fifths of this territory is timbered land, while only about one-fifth is prairie. The prairies invariably occupy the more or less elevated lands between the water-courses, and h&ve generally a considerable depth of quaternary deposits, sometimes underlaid with shales. It is seldom that rocks are found in the prairies, even by digging to some depth, though at some places timbered hills occur in the prairie, which are underlaid with solid rockj' strata, and rise above the level of the prairie either within its bounds or at its edge. Knob Prairie has its name from such a hill or knob. The timbered portion of the county is partly flat, but^most of it is undtilating or broken, in consequence of the numerous water-courses which traverse the county in every direction. It has some post-oak flats, also some wet flats at the edge of prairies, in which water-oak predominates, but more oak barrens, with a growth of black oak, white oak, post oak, hickory, etc. The timber in the creek bottoms is generally quite heavy, and consists of swamp white oak, water oak, sugar maple, sycamore, black walnut, white walnut, etc. In the extreme southeast part of the county, however, are occasional trees of more southern affinity, such as the sweet gum.

The county is well supplied with running water, principally by the branches of Big Muddy River, which head near the north line of the county and traverse it in a southerly direction, with many smaller creeks which empty into them, both from the west and east. The main branch of Big Muddy Kiver heads near the northwest corner of the county, some miles southeast of Centralia, while some other ravines near by run westward toward Crooked Creek and the Kaskaskia River. The Little Muddy River passes through the southwest corner of the county. In the northeast part of the county is Horse Greek, a tributary of the Little Wabash River, and all the branches on the east line of the county take their couTBe eastward, toward the Little Wabash.

The geological formation of Jefferson County, like those of all the adjoining counties, are members of the coal formation. All over the county, with the exception of a limited area in the southwest corner, is found the same strata traced all over the county of Marion - a subdivision of the upper coal measures, including a coal seam which varies from six to twenty-four inches in thickness. At a greater depth may be found the Du Quoin coal bed, and the sandstones overlying this coal and its associated limestones, have been traced over a large area east of the outcrop of the coal, and attain a considerable but variable thickness, sometimes amounting to more than two hundred feet, and appear to pass across the extreme southeast corner of this county.*

The Shoal Creek limestone has no great thickness. It varies between seven and fifteen feet; but being the only prominent limestone between two heavy bodies of sandstone, it forms a well marked horizon, and can be readily traced over a long distance. In Perry County, only a quarter of a mile from the Jefferson County line, on Little Mudd}' River, just before it enters the latter county, is an outcrop of evidently the same limestone. Here five feet of it are exposed, covered with soil. It rests on one foot of shales and three feet of black, laminated slates, which reach to the water level. Coal, probably fifteen inches thick, has been dug from the bed of the creek. From this jioint, the Shoal Creek limestone must pass into Jefferson County; but the county is mostly covered with heavy quaternary deposits, and is thinly settled, so that artificial deposits are wanting. Higher up those creeks and in the barrens, sandstones- crop out at a few points. The rest of the county is occupied by the higher sandstone formation, the same which covers the whole of Marion County. Almost everywhere single layers of the sandstone can be found of sufficient hardness for building purposes. This formation being part of the coal measure system, it may be expected to contain some stone coal, but it is not rich in this mineral. It is found at numerous points, however, throughout Jefferson and Marion Counties, and it undoubtedly extends much further. It is of considerable local importance, being used extensively in this district, and has been opened at numerous points. At some places, this coal is quite pure and free from sulphur, but at others it contains much sulphuret of iron.

The slaty, fossiliferous limestone, which is a certain indication of the coal, has been noticed north of the " Limestone Branch. " In Jordan's Prairie, at Rome, the coal is struck in every well, only ten feet below the surface, and is probably ten inches thick. At the edge of the prairie southeast from Rome, the coal has been mined to some extent, especially in the southwest part of Section 18. At that point the bed is fourteen inches thick, of which at least ten is good coal. The coal has likewise been found near the middle of the north line of the northeast quarter of Section 24 and farther east, and at other points in this portion of the connty. In all places it was from ten to twelve inches thick, and accompanied with shales, the calcareous slate and sandstone.

The of&cial snrvey, and a description of all the noteworthy discoveries in the county leads to the conclusion that all the coal which is near the surface in the county, with the exception of that in the southwest corner, belongs to one stratum, which, is in some places divided in two by a parting of shale, and which is the sarne that extends all over the adjoining county of Marion. The stratum, at a few points, exceeds one and a half feet in thickness of good coal, and is frequently thinner. Where it is thicker, it generally contains impure portions. It is at many points of a very good quality, and. as the country is broken, it can be profitably worked in numerous localities by stripping along the outcropping edges. It is. therefore, well adapted to supply the local demand for coal throughout the county at a very moderate cost. The coal and accompanying strata are neither horizontal nor dipping in one direction, but they form waves which follow more or less the surface configuration of the country. A question arises whether there is a lower coal bed. of greater thickness, at an available depth. The next lower coal seam is that underneath the Shoal Creek limestone; but this coal, where it is known on Little Muddy Kiver, near the west line of the county, is too thin to pay the expenses i>f deep mining. This seam may become of some local importance in the southwest comer of the county, where it can be worked by stripping along its outcrop on a limited area, but further on it is covered by a considerable thickness of the higher strata. The only remaining coal bed of good prom ise is, then, the one worked in the coal shaft at Tamaroa, on the Illinois Central Railroad, at a depth of about two hundred feet below the surface, which is the Du Quoin coal. Tamaroa is a little over four miles west of the southwest corner of the county, and it would seem, therefore, as if this coal bed. in tlie nearest part of the county, could not be much, if any, deeper. From the same formations, however, in the adjoining counties, it is believed that this coal dips rapidly downward from Tamaroa, and in most parts of Jefi"erson County lies at a considerable depth. It [would probably be found at the least depth in the southwest comer of the county, but even ,there it would hardly be reached under several hundred feet.

The coal near the surface in this countj- is the same as the vein near the surface at Central City. If a great demand for coal should arise, this lower coal bed might supply it. Its depth, at least, would not be greater than that of many coal pits in other countries, and the only question would be as to its thickness, which at Tamaroa amotmts to five feet eight inches.

The shales accompanying tlie coal bed contain generally much kidney-iron ore - an impure carbonate of iron in sub-globular concretions, or in flat bodies or sheets. The aggregate quantity of this ore is large, but it is probably ;not concentrated at any one point in sufficient quantity and of sufficient piurity to be, for the present, of practical value for the production of iron. Some pieces of galena have been found scattered over the country, such as occur in the drift in many other cotmties of the State. The water in some parts of the county is impregnated with salts, originating principally from the decomposition of the sulphate of iron contained in the coal or shales, and from the action of the sulphate of iron thus produced upon the strata which it percolates. Thus.

other and more complex combiaations of salts are formed, such as magnesia salts, alums, etc. As the coal seam is near the surface in many neighborhoods, wells are frequently sunli down to it or the accompanying strata, and this well-water contains thpse salts in variable quantities, which are often sufficiently large to prevent the use of the water for household purposes. Thus it is at Mount Yernon, at Rome, in some parts of Horse Prairie, especially at the Stone-Coal branch, and at other places.

The strongest mineral water, probably, in the countj- is the springs of Dr. William Duff Green, in the southeastern part of the city of Mount Yernon. There are several of these springs. They issue from the side of a shallow ravine, at the same level, a few feet from each other, from a highly ferruginous stratum, which is apparently the slaty shale, with the iron ore above the coal seam here changed beyond recognition by the long- continued influence of the mineral water. These springs all contain a considerable quantity of iron combined with other salts. A remarkable fact is that the water of all of them is not quite the same. The difference consists, however, principally in the relative quantity of the salts. The springs evidently emanate from the same stratiun, but, passing through different pwrtions of the rock, the water mav come in contact with slightly different mineral substances.

The temperature of the running springs is the mean temperature of the earth in this latitude, or, what is the same, that of a deep, cool cellar; but one spring, which is by Dr. Green called " Tepid Spring," differs from the others in various respects. It is warmer than the others, at least in summer, because, not running as freely as they do, its water is stationary, and assumes the temperature of the air. It does not freeze in winter, which is, apparently, not a consequence of intrinsic heat, but of its saline character. Its water has a milky hue, because the iron salts which it contains begin tj decompose in the orifice of the spring, where they are long exposed to the oxidizing influence of the air, without being discharged. Such is the simple explanation, based on the teaching of science, of some facts which have been regarded as wonderful mysteries. Nature's works seem mysterious, but all conform to definite laws, which, when the principles are once understood, appear clear and plain as daylight. A small quantity of gas is devolved in the springs, either through the action of sulphates upon carbonates in the strata or perhaps altogether by a vegetation of a low order, which rapidly grows and coats the orifice of the springs, and. under the direct action of the sun's rays, exhales oxygen. Although originally similar, the waters of these difi'erent springs now, very probably, have a different medicinal effect upon the system.

Building material is found in the county in large quantities. Sandstone, for foundations, the walling of wells and for all ordinary and heavy masonry, can be readily obtained in nearly all parts of the county. Good quarries are already known in large numbers, and with little labor many new ones might be opened in convenient locations, as sandstones form the principal substrata of the countv. The limestone is generally impure, siliceous or argillaceous. At some points it can be burnt and used for making mortar, and if the demand were suUicient better quarries might be opened, and a better article might be obtained. The fossiliferous, slaty limestone, or calcareous slate, is tmdoubtedly a superior fertilizer, but has not yet been used as such. Its wide distribution over the county will render it valuable in fnttire times. Brick mav be manu- factored wherever needed ; and of line timber of various kinds - white oak, black oak, post oak, black walnut, etc. - there is an excellent supply.

The agricultural excellence of the county, which is fully up to the standard of any of the counties in this portion of the State, will be treated of further along in this work.

THROUGHOUT the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, as well as many portions of North America, and extending into South America, are found the remains of a former race of inhabitants, of whose origin and history we have no record, and who are only known to us by the relics that are found in the tumuli which they have left. The Mound- Builders were a numerous people, entirely distinct from the North American Indians, and they lived so long before the latter that they are not known to them by tradition. They were evidently industrious and domestic in their habits, and the finding of large sea shells in the Illinois mounds, which must have been brought from the Gulf of Mexico, if not from more distant shores, proves that they had communication and trade with other tribes. Perhaps the most interesting fact connected with this ancient people is that they had a written language. This is proved by pome inscribed tablets that have been discovered in the mounds, the most important of which belong to the Davenport Academy of Sciences. These tablets have attracted gi-eat attention from archseologiste, and it is thought they will some time prove of great value as records of the people who wrote them. It is still uncertain whether the language was generally tinderstood by the Mound-Buildeis, or whether it was confined to a few persons of high rank. In the mound where two of these tablets were discovered, the bones of a child were found, partially preserved by contact with a large number of copper beads, and as copper was a rare and precious metal with them, it would seem that the mound in question was used for burial of persons of high rank. The inscriptions have not been deciphered, for no key to them has yet been found; we are totally ignorant of the derivation of the language, or its aifinities with other written languages.

The Mound-Builders lived while the mammoth and mastodon were upon the earth, as is clearly proved by the carvings upon some of their elaborate stone pipes. From the size and other peculiarities of the pipes, it is inferred that smoking was not habitual with them, but that it was reserved as a sort of ceremonial observance. Our knowledge of the habits and customs of the Mound-Builders is very incomplete, but it ia sufficient to show that at least a part of this country was onco inhabited by a people who have passed away without leaving so much as a tradition of their existence, and who are only known to us through the silent relics which have been interred for centuries. A people utterly forgotten, a civilization totally lost! Oblivion has drawn her impenetrable veil over their history. No printed page intelligible to us, or sculptm-ed monument, inform us who they were, whence they came or whither they went. In vain has science sought to penetrate the gloom and solve thejiroblem locked in the breast of the voiceless jiast, but ev^ry theory advanced, every reason assigned etids where it began, in speculation.

There are no traces of the Mound-Builders to be found in Jefferson County. From the relics they have left of their existence, it seems they kept near the water, as the most extensive mounds and earthworks are found in the vicinity of the lakes of the North and along our great rivers. Two of the largest mounds in the United States are located in Illinois and West Virginia - the great mound in the American Bottom ^between Alton and East St. Lotris, denominated the " Monarch of all similar structures in the United States," and that located near the junction of Grave Creek with the Ohio Kiver in West Virginia. Along the Illinois and Wabash Elvers, many of these mounds may still be seen, though hundreds of the smaller ones have been leveled with the earth by the plowshare. At Palestine and Hutsonville, 111., and at Merom, Ind., on the Wabash Eiver, are extensive groups. The Hutsonville group contains fifty-nine mounds, and vary in size from eighteen to fifty feet in diameter at the base: They were scientifically examined 3 few years ago by Prof. Putnam, of Boston, who made an extended report of them to the Boston Historical Society.

The Indians. - Of the Red Indians, but little is known of them prior to the discovery of the country by the Eiu'opeans. They were found here, but how long they had been in possssion historians have no definite means of knowing. Their origin is a question that has long interested archaeologists, and is one of the most difficult they have been called on to answer. Many theories tipon the subject are entertained, but all, alike, are more or less unsatisfactory. It is believed by some that they were an original race, indigenous to the Western Hemisphere. A more common sup])Osition, however, is that ttiey are a derivative race, and sjirang from one or more of the ancient peoples of Asia. In the absence of all authentic history, and even when tradition is wanting, any attempt to jjoint the particular theater of their origin mast prove unsuccessful. For centuries they have lived without progi'ess, while the Caircasian variety of the race, under the transforming power of art, science and improved systems of civil polity, have made the most rapid advancement.

The advent of the whites upon the shores of the western continent engendered in the red man's bosom a spark of jealousy, which, by the impolitic course of the former, was soon fanned into a blaze, and a contest was thereby inaugurated that sooner or later must end in the utter extermination of the latter. But the struggle was long and bitter. Many a campaign was planned by warriors worthy and tit to command armies, for the destruction of the pale-faced invaders.

When King Philip struck the blow which he hoped would forever crush the growing power of the white men, both sides recognized the supreme importance of the contest, and the courage and resources of the New England colonists were taxed to the utmost to avoid a defeat which meant destruction final and complete. When Tecumseh organized the tribes of the West for a last and desperate effort to hold their own against the advancing tide of civilization, it was a duel to the death, and the conquerors were forced to pay dearly for the victory which to them was salvation. When the Creeks challenged the people of the South to mortal combat, it required the genius of a Jackson and soldiers worthy of such a chief to avert an overwhelming calamity, and the laurels gathered by the heroes of Talledega, Emuckfau, and Tohopeka lost little of their luster when with them were twined the laurels of Chalmette. But since the decisive battle of Tohopeka, March 27, 1814, there has been no Indian war of any considerable magnitude, none certainly which threatened the supremacy of the whites upon the continent, or even seriously jeopardized the safety of the States or Territories where they occurred. The Black Hawk war, about the last ortranized effort, required but a few weeks service of raw militia to quell. Since then, campaigns have dwindled into mere raids, battles into mere skirmishes, and the massacre of Dade's command in Florida and Custer's in Montana were properly regarded as accidents of no permanent importance. A dozen such, melancholy as they might be, would not, in the least, alarm the country, and Indian fighting, though not free from peril, now serves a useful purpose as a training school for the young graduates of West Point, who might otherwise go to their graves at a good old age without ever having smelled hostile gun -powder.

The Indians as a race are doomed by the inexorable laws of humanity to speedy and everlasting extinguishment. Accepting the inevitable with the stoical indifference which the instinct of self-preservation or the prompting of revenge seldom disturb, they excite pity rather than fear. The recent Apache uprising, which Gen. Crook suppressed so quickly and cheaply, is the utmost the red man can now do in the way of warlike enterprise. Discouraged and demoralized, helpless and hopeless, he sits down to await a swiftly approaching fate; and if now and then he treads the war path and takes a few white scalps, it is more from force of habit than from any expectation of crippling the power that is sweeping him and his out of existence.

Two hundred years ago, however, the white man lived in America only by the red man's consent, and less than a hundred years ago the combined strenorth of the red man might have driven the white into the sea. Along our Atlantic coast are still to be seen the remains of the rude fortifications which the early settlers built to protect themselves from the host of enemies around; but to find the need of such protection now one must go beyond the Mississippi, beyond the Rocky Mountains, to a few widely scattered points in Arizona, New Mexico and Oregon. The enemy that once camped in sight of the Atlantic has retreated almost to the shores of the Pacific, and from that long retreat there can be no retiurning advance. East of the stream which he called the " Father of Waters," nothing is left of the Indian except the names he gave and the graves of his dead, with here and there the degraded remnants of a once powerful tribe dragging out a miserable life by the sufferance of their conquerors. Fifty years hence, if not in a much shorter period, he will live only in the pages of history and the brighter im- mortality of romantic song and story. He will leave nothing behind him but a memory, for he has done nothing and been nothing. He has resisted and will continue to resist every attempt to civilize him - every attempt to inject the white man's ideas into the red man's brain. He does not want and will not have our manners, our morals or our religion, clinging to his own and perishing with them. The greatest redeeming feature in his career, so far as that career is known to us, is that he has always preferred the worst sort of freedom to the best sort of slavery. Had he consented to become a hewer of wood and drawer of water for the superior race, he might, like our Americanized Africans, be enjoying the blessings of Bible and breeches, sharing the honors of citizenship and the delights of office, seeking and receiving the bids of rival political parties. Whether his choice was a wise one, we leave our readers to determine ; but it is impossible not to feel some admiration for the indomitable spirit that has never bowed its neck to the' yoke, never called any man "master." The Indian is a savage, but he never was, never will be a slave.

If the treatment of the red man by the white had been uniformly or even generally honest and honorable, the superior race might contemplate the decay and disappearance of the inferior without remorse, if not without regret. But unfortunately that treatment has been, on the whole, dishonest and dishonorable. In a speech in New York City, not long before his death. Gen. Sam Houston, an indisputable authority in such matters, declared with solemn emphasis that "there never was an Indian war in which the white man was not the agressor. " The facts sustain an assertion which carries its own comment. But aggression leading to war is not the heaviest sin against the Indian. He has been deceived, he has been cheated, he has been robbed; and the deception, cheating and robbery has taught him that the red man has no rights which the white man feels bound to respect. Whatever else he may be, he is no fool, and with the dismal experience of more than 250 years burning his soul, is it any wonder that they will have none of our manners, our morals, or our relia'ion ? " My son, " said the mother of a too often whipped boy, " why will you not behave like a gentleman?" " If you did not treat me like a dog, I might," was the reply. We have treated the Indian like a dog and are surprised that he has developed into a dog and not into a Christian citizen. There is no reason to suppose that the Indian is capable of a high degree of civlization, but that he is what he is may be

! manhood has been literally ground out of him by the heel of relentless oppression and outrage. He was always a barbarian, but we have made him a brute. He might, perhaps,

1 have been gradually transformed into a humble and harmless member of civilized society. We have made him a nuisance and a curse whose extermination the interests of society imperatively demand - and are rapidly accomplshing. The crimes of the Indian have been blazoned in a hundred histories; his wrongs are written only in the records of that court of final appeal, before which oppressors and oppressed must stand for judgment.

But few people, and particularly the pioneers of the country, will agree with any defense, bo it ever so feeble, of the Indian. Their hatred of him, often on general principles, is intense, and always was so, and the greatest wrongs have been heaped upon him merely because he was au Indian, utterly regardless of the fact that he was a human being. When resenting the encroachments of the whites upon his hunting grounds, he has been characterized as a fiend, a savage and a barabarian, and one who might be robbed, mistreated, and even murdered without any compunction. This whole broad land was the Indian's birthright. How he came to possess it is no busfinesa of ours, nor is it pertinent to the subject. It is our own now, and it is a matter of grave doubt whether we attained it more honorably than did the Indian before us. Were our title to be challenged by another race of people, we doubtless should do as the Indians did, contest our rights step by step to the bitter end, and with all our boasted civilization and refinement, it is not improbable that we might inaugurate as great barbarities and cruelties as they did, rather than yield our homes and fii'esides.

Tribes of Southern Illinois. - The Indians occupying Southern Illinois when first known to the whites were the Delawares, the Kickapoos, the Shawnees and the Piankeshaws, with occasional fragmentary bands from the tribes who came to hunt. The Delawares were once a powerful tribe, one of the most powerful of North America. They called themselves Lenno Lenape, wliich .sicrnifies "original " or " unmixed " men. When first met with by Europeans, they occupied a district of country bounded easterly by the Hudson River and the Atlantic, on the west their territories extended to the ridge separating the flow of the Delaware from the other streams erapyting into the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay. The Delawares had been a migratory people. According to their own traditions, many hundred years had elapsed since they had resided in the western part of the continent; thence, by slow emigration, they reached the Alleghany River, so called from a nation of giants, the "Allegewi," against whom they (the Del a wares) and the Iroquois (the latter also emigrants from the West) carried on successful war; and still proceeding eastward, settled on the Delaware, Hudson, Susquehanna and Potomac Rivers, making the Delaware the center of their possessions. By the other Algonquin tribes, the Delawares were regarded with the utmost respect and veneration. They were called " fathers," " grandfathers," etc.*

A paper addressed to Congi'ess, May 10, 1779, establishes the territory of the Delawares subsequent to their being driven westward from their former possessions by their old enemies, the Ii'oquois, in the following described boundaries: " From the mouth of the Alleghany River at Fort Pitt to the Venango, and thence up French Creek and by Le Boeuf (the present site of Waterford, Penn.) along the old road to Presque Isle on the east; the Ohio River, including all the islands in it, from Fort Pitt to the Oubache (W^abash), on the south; thence up the Oubache River to that branch. Ope-comeecah (the Indian name of White River, Indiana), and up the same to the head thereof; from thence to the head- waters and springs of the Great Miami, or Kocky River; thence across to the head-waters of the most northeastern branches of the Scioto River; thence to the westermost springs of the Sandusky River; thence down said river, including the islands in it and in the little lake (Sandusky Bay), to Lake Erie on the west and northwest, and Lake Erie on the north." These boundaries contain the cessions of lands made to the Delaware nation by the Wyandots, the Hurons and the

Iroquois. The Delawareg. after Gen. Wayne's sici-nal victory in 1704, came to realize that fiu-ther contests with the American colonies would be worse than useless. They therefore submitted to the inevitable, acknowledged the supremacy of the whites and desired to make peace with the victoi's. At the close of the treaty at Greenville, made in 1795, by Gen. Wayne, Bu-kon-ge-he-las, a Delaware chief of great influence in his tribe, spoke as follows: "Father, your childi'en all well understand the sense of the treaty which is now concluded. We experience daily proofs of your iacreasing kindness. I hope we may all have sense enough to enjoy our dawning happiness. All who know me, know me to be a man and a warrior, and I now declare that 1 will for the future be as steady and true friend to the United States as I have, heretofore, been an active enemy."

This promise of Bu-kon-ge-he-las was faithfully kept by his people. They evaded ;ill the eftorts of the Shawnee prophet, Tooumseh, and the British, who endeavored to induce them by threats or bribes to violate it. They remained faithful to the I'nitod States during the war of 1812, and, with the Shawnees, furnished some voi-y able warriors and scouts who rendered valuable services to the United States during the war. After the Greenville treaty, the great body of the Delawares removed to their lands on White River, Indiana, Vhither some of their people had preceded them, while a lai'ge fragment of the tribe crossed the Wabash into Southern Illinois. Now and then predatory bands coiumitted outrages on the scattered settlers, but on a siu ill scale. They continued to reside on White River and the Wabash and their trib utaries until 1819, when most of them emigrated to Missoviri and located on the tract of land granted by . the Spanish authorities in 1793, jointly to them and the Shawnees. Others of their tribe, who remained in Illinois, finally scattered themselves among the Miamis, Pottawatomies and Kickapoos, and a few, including the Moravian converts, went to Canada, and their identity as part of a distinct tribe is lost.

The largest part of the Delaware nation in 182 , settled on the Kansas and Missouri Rivers. They numbered 1,000, were brave, enterprising hunters, cultivated lands and were friendly to the whites. In 1853, they sold the Government all the lands granted them, excepting a reservation in Kansas. During the late civil war, they sent to the United States Army 170 out of their 20U able-bodied men. Like their ancestors, they proved valiant and trustworthy soldiers.

The Shawnese or Shawanese wore an erratic tribe of the Algonquin family. A tradition recently originated makes them primarily one with the Kickapoo nation. They were driven southward by the warlike Iroquois and wandered into the Carolinas and some of them into Florida. But toward the close of the sevenreenth century a large band of them went North and was among the tribes occupying Pennsylvania when it was granted to Penn. The Iroquois claimed sovereignty over the Shawnees and drove thorn to the West. Thoy took ])art in the conspiracy of Pontiac, and afterward participated in the campaigns^ against Gens. Harmar and St. Clair in Ohio. For mauy years they were liittor and relentless foes of the whites. Thoy submitted under the treaty of Gen. Wayne at Greenville in 1795, but in the war of 1812 some of tho petty tribes of the Shawnees joined tho British. A fragment of tho tribe drifted to Southern Illinois, and had their village at Shawneetown, which place now bears their name. Some of them went

WeBt after the Greenville treaty, and a few years after the close of the war of 1812 most of those remaining crossed the Father of Waters. In 1854, there were about 900 Shawnees in Kansas, and in 1876 there were some 750 in the Indian Territory.

The Kickapoos were also a tribe of the Algonquin family, and were found by the French missionaries toward the close of the seventeenth century on the Wisconsin Kiver. They were closely allied to the Miamis, but roved in bands over a large territory. They were more civilized, industrious, energetic and cleanly than the neighboring tribes, and. it may also be added, more implacable in their hatred of the Americans. They were among the first to commence battle and the last to enter into treaties. Unappeasable enmity led them into the field against Harmar, St. Clair and Wayne, and a like spirit placed them first in all the bloody charges on the field of Tippecanoe. In the treaties of Portage des Sioux in 1815, Fort Harrison, 1816, and Edwardsville, 1819, they ceded a large part of the land they claimed. Many of the tribes had already gone beyond the Mississippi, and the United States assigned them a large tract on the Osage. But they still retained their old enmity to the Americans, and when removed from Illinois a part of them went to Texas, then a province of Mexico, to get beyond the jurisdiction of the United States. In 1822, about 1,800 had removed, leaving only 400 remaining in Illinois. Some few of these settled down to cultivate the ground, but more of them rambled off to hunt on the grounds of Southern tribes. They plundered on all sides and made constant inroads, killing and horse-stealing. During the years 1810 and 1811, and prior to the emigration of any of them to the West, they committed so many thefts and 'murders on the frontier settlements in conjunction with the Chippewas, Pottawatomies and Ottawas, that Gov Edwards was compelled to employ military force to suppress them.

The Piankeshaws'.were a weak, petty tribe, and supposed to have been an offshoot of the Shawnees. They at one time inhabited and claimed the country for some distance on both sides of the Wabash River toward its mouth, and northwest to the head- waters of the Kaskaskia River. This comprises a brief sketch of the different tribes of the " noble red men" who inhabited Southern Illinois, and who doubtless have chased the deer and hunted the game through the woodland groves and prairies of Jefferson County. The Piankeshaws, however, seem to have been the Indians who held a kind of claim on this immediate section of the country. "But what iy remarkable," says Mr. Johnson, " they have not left a single name of prairie, town or stream that may remain as a monument to tell the world that such a tribe ever existed. ''^ All the Indians of Southern Illinois were driven back finally by stronger tribes coming down from the North. They lost the proud spirit characteristic of their race, cowered around the white settlements f jr protection and abandoned themselves to indolence and drunkenness.

From the time of the first white settlements in this county, occasional bands of^Indians made incursions for hunting and tralfic. They carried their pelts to Shawneetown, Kaskaskia and St. Louis, and in return brought back a variety of articles which they bartered away among the white settlers. In 1819-20, the Delawares came through the county on their way to their We.?tern reservation. From some cause or other, they remained here a considerable time. A large number of them were encamped on the creek near where John Pearcy lives, undei a chief called George Owl. There were also some 600 encamped for a time on Horse Creek, some ei;^ht or ten miles from Mount Vernon, under Capt. Whitefeather. They sent loads of pelts to Shawneetown and Kaskaskia, bringing back many things the settlers could not have prociu'ed elsewhere. They also sold hunting shirts, breeches and moccasins (of buck-skin) of their own make to the whites. Another band was encamped where George Bullock's meadow is now. The chief, it is said, had some pretty daughters, and when, at his urgent request, Isaac Casey's daughters paid them a visit, the old chief seemed very much delighted and was as polite toward them as a French dancing master. While these Indians were encamped in the county, they remained on the most friendly terms with the settlers, and were polite (as an Indian could be) and extremely hospitable. If any of the whites visited them at mea) time, they were invited to eat, and if they refused, the Indians felt offended; but on the contrary, if they accepted, they (the Indians) were highly pleased and all sat back and waited till their pale face guests were through eating.

No murders or massacres are positively known to have been committed in the county by the Indians. The only probable mm-der was that of Andrew Moore, an account of which will be found in connection with the early settlement. A little panic occurred in 1818, but resulted in nothing more than a considerable scare. The facts are about as follows; The Cherokees, who occupied the western part of Kentucky, made occasional visits to this part of Illinois. They were less peaceably disposed than the Illinois Indians, and a band of them caused the panic alluded to, the only instance of the kind known in the history of Jefferson County. Isaac Casey and William and Isaac Hicks had occasion to go to the Ohio River on business, and Abram and Clark Casey were left in charge of the families. Soon after they left, small squads of Indians came about the cabin, acting in a rather suspicious manner, greatly alarming the whites. Some time dm-ing the night a noise was heard, which their fear magnified into a probable attack or preparations for one, and gathsring up their arms, they beat a hasty retreat - " falling back in good order" - to William Casey's cabin, where they spent the night - a prey to dismal forebodings. The night passed, however, without any attack being made, and with the morning's light their courage returned. They went back home, where they found things undisturbed, and then enjoyed a hearty laugh at their needless scare.

Few traces of the Indians now remain in tne county. Implements, such as stone hatchets, arrow-heads, etc. , years ago could be picked up in the vicinity of their old camps, but nothing more. Nothing like the ruins of an ancient village or a biuylng ground are known to exist save a few mounds or hillocks near the fair grounds, which are supposed to be and probably are the remains of an Indian cemotei'y.

Black Hawk War. - It is not inappropriate to cloao this chapter with a brief sketch of the Black Hawk war. Although we shall devote a subsequent chapter to the war and military history of the county, yet, while engaged with the Indians, it is well, perhaf^s, to "exterminate" them and be done with it. That is the inevitable doom awaiting them. The causes which led to the Black Hawk war reach back to and even prior to the Winnebago and Sac war of 1827, and briefly stated by Edwards in his history of Illinois, are as follows: During the administration of Gov. Edwards, the Indians upon the Northwestern frontier began to be very troublesome.

The different tribes not only commenced a warfare among themselves, in regard to their respective boundaries, but they extended their hostilites to the white settlements. A treaty of peace, in which the whites acted more as mediators than as a party, had been signed at Prairie Du Chi en on the 29 th of August, 1825, by the terms of which the boundaries between the Winnebagoes and Sioux, Chippewas. Sacs, Foxes and other tribes, were defined, but it failed to keep them quiet. Their depredations and murders continued frequent, and in the summer of 1827 their conduct particularly of the Winnebagoes, became very alarming. There is little doubt, however, that the whites, who at this period were immigrating in large niTmbers to the Northwest and earnestly desired their removal further westward, purposely exasperated the Indians, at the same time that they greatly exaggerated the hostlities committed. The Indians thus maddened and rendered insanely jealous of the encroachments of the whites and the insults and injui'ies heaped upon them, finally broke out into open war.

Black Hawk, in the spring of 1831, came over from west of the Mississippi River with 300 warriors of his "old guard," and ordered the whites to leave, committed numei'ous depredations and threatened more serious results if his orders were not immediately complied with. Gens. Gaines and Duncan were ordered to quell the Indians, and marched to the scene with a hastily collected army. The clouds of war soon disappeared, however, by Black Hawk and his warriors suing for peace, and the former treaty of 1804 was ratified.

This peace was not destined to remain long imbroken. Early in the spring of 1832, Black Hawk again prepared to assert his right to the disputed territory. He recrossed the Mississippi River, proceeded toward Rock River and began to collect an army.

Gov. Reynolds called for troops and promptly the State responded. Jefferson County furnished a full company, besides a number of men scattered through other companies and battalions. From the report of the Adjutant General of the State, for the Black Hawk and Mexican wars, we give the roster of this company, as follows: James Bowman, Captain; Franklin S. Casey, First Lieutenant; Green Deprist, Second Lieutenant; Stephen G. Hicks, Eli D. Anderson, John R. Satter field and Littleton Daniels, Sergeants; George Bullock, James Bullock, Isaac S. Casey and Isaac Deprist, Corporals; Privates, S. H. Anderson, G. W. Atchison, Ignatius Atchison, Samuel Bullock, William Bingaman, Joseph Bradford, M. D. Bruce, P. C. Buffiington, John Baugh, S. W. Carpenter, Zadok Casey, John Darnall, William Deweeze, Gasaway Elkin, Robert Elkin, Isaac Faulkenburg, William D. Gastin, Willis B. Holder, William B. Hays, James Ham, Joel Harlow, John Isam, John Jenkins, David Kitrell, James C. Martin, Nathaniel Morgan, James F. Miner, John E. McBrian, H. B. Newby, J. R. Owens, Peter Owens, Wyatt Parrish, George W. Pace, James Rhea, Jacob Reynolds, William Thomason and Joseph Thomason. Killed, William Allen, at Kellogg's Grove, June 25, 1832; -lames B. Bond, James Black and Abram Bradford, died of disease; Robert Meek and Marcus Randolph wounded at Kellogg's Grove. The men elected their own officers and each man furnished his own horse and gun. These were to be valued when the men were mustered in, and paid for if lost when the men should be discharged. By the 15th of June the troops had arrived at their place of rendezvous and amounted to over 3,000 men. They were formed into three brigades, commanded respectively by Gens. Posey, Alexander and Henry. The company from Jefferson

Prairie Du Chien. A treaty was made in the following September, which ended the Indian troubles in this State. Black Hawk had been captured, and upon regaining his liberty ever after remained friendly to the whites.