Kendall County, Illinois - Chapter 16: S. G. Minkler S Story, 1877

Chapter 16: S. G. Minkler S Story

T WOULD be impossible in a single volume to relate the adventures of every pioneer in his journey to the far off west. The following narrative is therefore given as a sample. It is interesting in itself, and is valuable for the insight it gives of the hardships our fathers underwent for their children's sakes. It is the story of Smith G. Minkler, one of our neighbors and one of the founders and staunch supporters of the Illinois State Horticultural Society.

In May, 1833, Joel Alvard, William and Joseph Groom, Madison Goislinc and Peter Minkler, and their families, Mrs. Polly Alvard, a widow with two children, and Edward Alvard and Jacob Bare, unmarried men, left Potter's Hollow, Albany county, N. Y.., for the

The Minklers' Journey

West. There were three covered wagons and twentjfive persons, and as they came on their numbers were increased. Joel Alvard had been to Illinois before, and had selected a tract of land in Tazewell county, and it was to that point the company were destined.

After nearly three weeks' travel through ISIew York and Ohio, they stopped a few days at Adrian, Mich., to recruit, and were strongly urged to settle there by a man who had been to Illinois and returned disgusted. He declared that all the trees he saw had to be spliced to make rails. He was, doubtless, honest in his opinion, for he had made but a flying visit, and seen only the bushy edges of the groves. The party, however, were not persuaded to abandon their original intention.

While passing through Indiana they were several times stuck so fast in the sloughs that it needed six horses, with a man at each horse's head, to draw a wagon through. At one time they were detained all day, and were pulled out by a prairie breaking team of five yoke of oxen. At Morgan Settlement, near the Illinois line, a man called Farwell, with two wagons, joined them. It was reported they could not cross the Calumet to go to Chicago, so they hired a guide to Hickory Creek. The guide offered his services, saying he had been over the ground and knew the route well. Sometimes they followed trails and sometimes they made their own track. At Salt Creek the hills were so steep they were obliged to chain the wheels and slide down. Part of one day they were detained in a slough, and most of the next day they traveled through hazel brush which cleaned the wagons again. Then followed a terrible thunderstorm, lastinor all night and until nine o'clock the next morning. The women were protected with quilts in the wagons, but the men were obliged to stand the drenching. They were now on an Indian trail, and the guide returned, saying there was no use in his going any further, as that trail led straight to their destination. But soon after he left they came to an old Indian town from whence the trails radiated in every direction, and they escaped from their perplexity by taking the wrong one, that led them to a second deserted town. They were then convinced they had and half of the company unloading the goods and leaving them behind, set out by compass with empty wagons to find the Calumet river, for somehow they were persuaded that they had to cross that stream. They returned unsuccessful, however, and then two men were sent back to Morgan Settlement, and Morgan himself came on to pilot them out of their dilemma, and they regained their route by retracing their steps some twenty miles. It afterward proved that their guide had deceived them in regard to his knowledge of the route. Coming to a stream they were told was the Little Calumet, Smith Minkler waded in for a sounding pole, and as he kept his nose above water in the deepest place, it was concluded to be fordable, and the wagons crossed. The women were put on the top of the baggage, and when they reached the other side everything was taken out to dry. The Big Calumet next was reached, flowing through a marsh as level as a floor as far as the eye could see, and bordered on either side by acres of tall black rushes.

Difficulties Of Travel

Over this stream they built a rude bridge of logs, and part of the teams crossed, but part could not, on account of the soft ground, and were obliged to remain there three days. Finally they reached Hickory Creek, and remained a week for one of the Alvards, who was sick, to get better. By this time it was near the beginning of harvest. They crossed the O'Plaine at Joliet - though not a solitary cabin marked the spot - but at Plainfield found the DuPage too high to ford. There was a campmeeting in progress at the time, and the tired emigrants were offered and gratefully accepted the hospitality of the tents while the river was lowering its banks. It was a more formidable stream half a century ago than in these degenerate days. Now, in summer time, a boy may easily wade it. The spring and summer of 1883, however, were unusually wet. In a week the river became fordable, and the party separated. Far well returned to the Calumet country and entered a large tract of bottom land. Minkler remained at Plainfield and assisted in the harvest ; but his son, Smith, with the rest of the party, proceeded toward Tazewell county. They stopped at The Springs for dinner - a few weeks before Mr. Piatt erected his cabin there - and some of the men, taking hold of the wagon wheels, shook like leaves, with

The Ague

But it was not Kendall county ague. It was a harvest from the miasmatic breath of the Calumet swamps, and was one of the severest of their Illinois experiences. A more amusing experience w^as with the wolves. They had heard big stories of wolves calling each other together for prey, and w^hen one night in camp the howling com- nienced all around them, thej were thoroughly alarmed, and forming a ring around their wagons, with loaded guns, prepared to sell their lives at a cost which would be fearful for even wolves to pay. But they were attacked only by their fears, and afterward enjoyed many a laugh at their wolf panic. Passing Holderman's, Donovan's, and Ottawa, they came to Bailey's, now Tonica. There two of the party bought claims, and that stopped farther progress in the direction of Tazewell county. Others went up the Vermillion river, fifteen miles from its mouth, and purchased. In the meantime, Mr. Minkler, meeting Peter Specie in Plainfield, had accepted the offer to come out to the Aux Sable grove and work Specie's claim. It provided him a present home and would give him more time to look around. In a few weeks Smith Minkler set out to go to his father's, and Mr. Goisline, who was his uncle, came with him. When this side of Ottawa, Goisline shot himself in the shoulder while pulling his gun to him out of the wagon, muzzle first, intending to shoot a chicken, and leaving young Minkler, he pushed on to Holderman's for treatment. Soon after Goisline left him, Mr. Minkler met Peter Specie riding horseback. As soon as he saw him he was so shocked that he could hardly stand on his feet. He thought, " That man has killed my father." As soon as Specie ascertained who young Minkler was, he said, " If you want to see your mother alive you must get home to-night." It appeared that Mrs. Minkler was taken dangerously ill, and Specie was asked to go after the absent son. But he had no clothes to wear. His only garments were his squatter's suit of buckskin and jean, so greasy and antiquated and powder-stained, that after living a month in the same house with eastern raiment, he was ashamed to wear them through so progressive a town as Ottawa. The poor, but kind-hearted man, therefore, borrowed his tenant's coat and hat, and was then willing to set forth on the journey. Smith Minkler arrived at the Specie cabin at midnight, and at nine in the morning his mother died - the first of the party to lay down her life in the new land. She was buried on Mr. Minkler's new claim, now owned by James Stevenson, on the west side of Specie Grove, where the rays of the setting sun would fall upon her grave. The remains have since been removed to the cemetery. She had said before starting on the long journey to the unknown West: "I do not expect to enjoy it myself, but for the sake of my children, I am willing to go." And like many another mother, she gave not only her enjoyment, but her life, for her children's sake.

After the funeral. Smith Minkler returned to his uncle at Holderman's, and the following day he also died. Ansel Reed was sent there one morning on an errand, and remembers seeing the injured man with his wounded arm swollen frightfully. Ebenezer Morgan was there at the time. The Pearces and Wilson had arrived a little before. Hazel brush covered the present site of Oswego, and an Indian trail ran through it. Mr. Minkler was down there one day when Wilson s boys were astride of an Indian pony, and the Indians with wild shouts of glee were pulling it along the trail. It seemed to be great fun for them. Such little photographic scenes give us more vivid ideas of the times than pages of description. One picture might be entitled, '' Killing hogs," for those animals after the Indian war rapidly increased in the woods and were added to by the stock of every new settler. The elements of a picture are a man on horseback, dressed in a "warmas," an overcoat made of an Indian blanket, and carrying a rifle. He sights his game, and at the first shot brings it down, ties it by the snout to his horse's tail, and wends his wav homeward.

Those wild hogs were often the most dangerous beasts that roamed the woods. Long nosed, long legged, gaunt and fleet, and savage as wolves : they could be caught alive only by separating them by dogs.

It was hard times for a few years. Mr. Minkler's family once lived on frozen potatoes and hulled corn while the father was away for provisions. Mr. Macomber had a mortar in a burned out stump, and a pounder hung over it on a spring pole, where the corn was pounded up. Yet the times were weathered through and prosperity waited on the other side, though as Mr. Minkler says, " Any young man who will let tobacco and cigars and billiards alone can pay for a farm now, at present prices, easier than we did at the government price." Mr. M. began early in the horticultural career which he has since followed so successfully. He got his first apple trees of Specie, cradling wheat for a dollar a day, and giving the dollar for four trees. Specie had raised them from the seed, and he thus became the pioneer nurseryman of Kendall county. Those apple trees are bearing yet, and with praiseworthy persistence in well doing, yielded their usual crop in the centennial year. Fit pattern for mankind. It is only a useful life that leads to an honored old age ; and in the Christian's service there is no discharge until death, and that old age only is truly honorable that bears good fruit unto the end.