Livingston County, Illinois - Chapter 2: Early Settlement, 1909

Chapter 2: Early Settlement

PROBLEMS WHICH CONFRONTED THE EARLY HOMESEEKER - METHODS OF BUILDING THE PIONEER CABIN - GOING TO MILL - HARDSHIPS AND DANGERS ENCOUNTERED BY THE PIONEERS - LIST OF FIRST SETTLERS BY TOWNSHIPS - JEREMIAH COOPER'S REMINISCENCES - EARLY AMUSEMENTS AND CHURCH MEETINGS.

When the pioneer farmer and home-seeker arrived in this county to "spy out the land" and select a place to make his future home, his first thought was to provide a shelter for his family and his team. He found along the streams an abundance of good hardwood timber, such as black and white walnut, white, red and burr oak, ash, elm, hickory, hackberry, wild cherry, etc., but no sawmill to convert this timber into lumber for building purposes. The early settler, how-, ever, usually came prepared to meet just such an emergency and was equal to the occasion. A hand-ax, a broad-ax, a cross-cut saw, hand-saw, an auger, adze, draw-shave, a frow and two or three iron wedges were the tools necessary for the construction of a comfortable log cabin. With a team and his outfit, which was sufficient for building purposes for a whole neighborhood, the pioneer farmer would begin the construction of his house and stables. Having selected the spot upon which to build his cabin, and determined the size he wished to make it, he would go into the timber and select a suffcient number of trees of the proper size, cut and with his team drag the logs to the place determined upon for the building. When he had enough logs on the ground he would cut them the proper length, notch the ends and place them around the spot where the house was to stand. Then, with the assistance of a few neighbors, the logs were soon put together in the shape of a house or log cabin. The rafters to support the roof were logs or poles, six to seven inches in diameter at the butt and laid lengthwise of the building and pinned with wooden pins, to the logs forming the gable ends, thus supporting the gables in place as well as forming rafters for the clapboard roof. The clapboards that were then in general use for making cabin roofs were made from logs cut in two and a half and three feet lengths from large straight-grained white or burr oak trees; and it required an experienced woodman to select trees that could easily be worked up into good clapboards. The logs were split into bolts with a maul and iron wedges, and with a mallet and frow soon worked up into clapboards that would make a roof as near watertight as a good shingle roof. After the first course of clap boards had been carefully laid, a pole was placed over the lower end of the course and seeurely pinned with inch wooden pins to the lower rafter supporting the clapboards. After the second course had been laid, lapping the first course eight to twelve inches, another pole was laid on immediately over the second rafter and held in place by three short sticks of wood with the lower ends resting against the first pole. In this manner the entire roof was laid and secured in position without the use of a hammer or nail and did good service for many years. The floors of these cabins were usually made of puncheons resting upon heavy sleepers made of logs, and fastened to the sleepers with wooden pins and then dressed down smooth with the adze. The door, window and fireplace openings were cut out after the cabin logs were in place. The jambs were made from straight grained split timber, dressed down straight with an adze and pinned to the ends of the logs where they had been cut out. The door was made of split slabs of timber and was hung on hinges made of oak or hickory wood. The fire-place was made large enough to take in four to six foot wood, was built of rock, with common clay for mortar, up about five or six feet high, or above the opening cut in the wall, and from there up as high as desired with split sticks about the size of lath, plastered outside and in with clay. The sash and window glass were about the only articles in the entire building not found or made upon the land. These were usually procured In Ottawa or Peoria, and came up the river from St. Louis by boat. The writer of this sketch lived in this county during the years 1847-1848 In a double log cabin built as above described, that did not contain an ounce of hardware in its entire construction, and it was not an uncomfortable habitation.

Stables for the horses were built of logs, as were the cabins, but with roofs thatched with slough grass. This slough grass grew six to seven feet high, and made a splendid roof for stables, cribs and sheds, as well as for "topping" off grain and hay stacks.

Hardships And Dangers

The many hardships experienced and difficulties met and overcome by the early settlers of Livingston County were, perhaps, no greater than those endured by all pioneers in a new country; and while raids and massacres by Indians were not feared, there were other foes to life and property that had to be reckoned with and combated and subdued, that were as troublesome and dangerous as Indians ever were. Every new settler in this county from the earliest period until as late as 1850, and a great many who located on our prairies after 1850, had to endure a siege of fever and ague, a malarial disease that was, of itself, rarely fatal, but fever and ague victims became so emaciated and weakened that they were easy prey to other more dangerous diseases that often followed. Another disease that the early settler was subject to, and which was more dreaded than fever and ague, because it so often proved incurable, was known as milk sickness. It was supposed that cows pasturing on the river bottom lands ate a certain noxious weed that poisoned the milk; and as milk has always been a staple article of food and drink, all the early settlers were subject to attacks of milk sickness, and many deaths resulted from this disease.

Besides suffering from the diseases above mentioned, which are rarely beard of to-day, the early settler had other foes to contend with that were a great menace to property. Prairie and timber wolves abounded all over the country during the early history of the county, and often made havoc among the many flocks of sheep and other stock. The larger grey or timber wolves would kill young calves and kill and carry off small pigs. For the protection of their stock as well as for procuring game for food, the early settlers all kept good rifles and they knew how to use them. They were a race of sharp-shooters. Another great danger to the pioneer was the fearful grass fires that would sweep the prairies every fall, destroying everything in their path, Fences, houses, and sometimes live stock were consumed by these resistless flames. The prairies during the early settlement of the county were literally alive with deer and prairie chickens. So numerous were the deer, that they would enter the farmers' fields by hundreds during the winter months, and eat and destroy great quantities of corn that still remained ungathered in the field. The corn at that time, however, was hardly worth the gathering, and the farmer would get even by supplying his family with good fat venison whenever he wanted it, and by decorating his fence with deer skins, which always found a ready market when the peddlers made their regular rounds through the county.

And still another nuisance, and quite a loss, that the pioneer farmer bad to put up with, was from the innumerable numbers of prairie chickens that would daily visit the wheat and corn fields after the crops had ripened; and had the grain been worth one-fifth the price received for it now, the money loss from the depredations of deer and prairie chickens would haye been enormous. As late as 1848 and 1849, in the late fall and winter months, the writer of these reminiscences has often seen herds of twenty to fifty deer leave the corn-field one-half mile east of street, and run north into what was then a vast, uncultivated and unfenced prairie. And during the same years, the prairie chickens would come to the corn fields along the timber in such great numbers that about or just after sunset, when they would fiy from the fields to their roosting places in the tall prairie grass, the rustling of their wings would sound like distant thunder.

After the completion of the Chicago & Alton Railroad in 1854, and a market was found for the deer and prairie chickens, local hunters and sportsmen from St. Louis, Chicago and other large cities flocked to this county and soon exterminated the deer and left but few prairie chickens where there had been hundreds of thousands a few years before. From the earliest history of Livingston county until 1850, this certainly was a "hunters' paradise." In addition to the deer and prairie chickens on the prairie, wild ducks and geese in the streams and ponds, wild turkeys, quail, squirrels and rabbits were very plentiful in the timber.

In the early settlement of Livingston county, the farmers all located in and along near the timber and near the streams of water. This was done for several reasons. Fuel and fencing were indispensable, and wood was the only fuel to be had. Coal had not yet been discovered in the county. Log houses and stables had to be built, and rails made to fence the fields, as all stock was permitted to run at large - hence the necessity of all early settlers owning timber land. Some of the first farms cultivated in the county were lands cleared up in the timber. Several farms were located in the timber south east of Pontiac. During the years from 1840 to 1848 these farms were abandoned, so far as cultivation was concerned, and wild blackberries and raspberries grew up and covered the land that had been denuded of timber and underbrush, These abandoned farms that have not again been brought under cultivation or been converted into pasture lands, now show no indication of ever having been cultivated, as they are again covered with large trees, The pioneer farmers knew that the prairie lands were as fertile as the timber lands, but the great danger from prairie fires, the desire to be located near their fuel supply, and to get the friendly shelter of the trees from the severe winter winds, prompted them to locate near and in the timber. When the timber lands had all been entered and were owned by individuals, and the settlers increased in numbers so that they were able to protect themselves from the devastating fires that annually swept the prairies, then they began to venture farther out on the rich prairie lands to make their farms and abandoned their fields in the timber.

All early settlers found it necessary to keep flocks of sheep, as the farmers' wives and daughters had to spin the wool, knit the socks and stockings and weave the cloth from which the winter clothing was made for the entire family. The spinning wheel and the loom were just as common and necessary articles in the pioneer farmer's house during the years of 1835 and 1850 as the range and heating stove or furnace are in a modern farmer's house to-day.

Going To Mill

One of the greatest inconveniences the first settlers of this county had to contend with was the long distance they had to go to mill and market, Up to the year 1851, there was not a grist mill in Livingston County, and the farmers had to go to Ottawa, or rather Dayton, a few miles beyond Ottawa, to get their corn and wheat ground. There was also a woolen mill at Dayton where the farmers could take their wool and have it scoured and carded into rolls ready for the spinning wheel. Ottawa was at the head of navigation on the Illinois river, and was the market town for Livingston County farmers. There they disposed of such produce as they had to sell, or rather exchanged their produce, peltry, deer skins, etc., for such necessary articles as Salt, sugar and coffee; and when they went to mill they usually loaded their wagons with all they could carry, going and coming, in addition to their regular grist. Four days, and sometimes five, were required to make the round trip, and these journeys had to be made at least twice a year - once in the summer or early fall, and once about the holidays. In the early spring, and sometimes during the late fall months, the roads leading from Livingston County to Ottawa were impassable for loaded teams, or the streams not fordable. When such conditions prevailed, the neighborhood that ran short of breadstuff was, to say the least, unfortunate, and resort had to be made to graters, a crude utensil made writer of this sketch, then a small boy, often operated such a device to provide material for the "staff of life," and it would surprise the uninitiated to see how quickly an ear of corn can be reduced to meal by this primitive process and sufficient corn meal made for the dinner of an ordinary family.

When a farmer found it would soon be necessary for him to "go to mill," the neighbors were duly informed of the fact, and he would have orders for all the necessaries and notions he could possibly carry on his return trip, such necessaries as tobacco (always tobacco), powder and lead, and quite often a gallon or more "snake bite medicine," for the men; and for the women, knitting needles, buttons, hooks and eyes, needles and thread, dye stuffs. such as madder and indigo, and some simple medical remedies. The farmer usually had ample time to dispose of his produce, purchase his supplies and do the shopping for his neighbors while waiting for bis grist to be ground and his wool scoured and carded. He was lucky indeed if he did not have to wait a day or more for his turn at the mill.

During the present rapid growth and development of Livingston County, it is interesting to refer to the past and see at what a comparatively recent period the first settler located in each of the different townships and also to preserve the name of the pioneers, but very few of whom are still living. To this end we give below the name of the first settler in each township in the county and the time at which he located:

Oldest Continuous Resident

Jeremiah F. Cooper of Fairbury, claims to be the oldest resident of Livingston County now living - not in point of age, for Mr. Cooper is but 76 years old, but in point of years of continuous residence in the county. Mr. Cooper was born in Overton County, Tennessee, October 29, 1832, and two years later, in 1834, he came with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. James Cooper, to Belle Prairie Township, locating on section 5, his parents being among the second settlers in that township. Mr. Cooper resided in that township until 1864, when he moved to Indian Grove Township. He was married to Miss Louisa Davis, January 19, 1854. Mrs. Cooper died January 17, 1906. Mr. Cooper moved to Fairbury in March, 1907, and has since remarried,

Mr. Cooper talks very interestingly of the early days in that locality. He says there were but four other families there in his early recollection. They lived at the "Grove," and were Uncle Barney Phillips and family, Uncle Martin Darnall and family, who was also the first white settler, James Spence and brothers and Richard Moore and family. They lived in log cabins through which the snow drifted in the winter season. The food was home-made and jeans furnished the only outside wearing apparel, while underclothing, overcoats and overshoes were unknown. Despite this fact, there was not much sickness, a little ague now and then, but doctors and medicines were almost unknown. Bloomington, Ottawa and Chicago were the trading points. A trip to one of these points was made about once a year, chiefly for the purpose of procuring salt. Mr. Cooper made a trip to Chicago with his father in 1847. That city looked pretty big to him at that time and it was a great trading point. There were no railroads there then, The eblef hotels were the Sherman House, which stood then on its present site, and the American Temperance House. Mr, Cooper and his father camped on the streets in their covered wagon, as did hundreds of others who were trading in Chicago. There were but few stores in Bloomington. Ottawa and Pontiac were not started until 1837, when the county was organized. Mr. Cooper's father was on the first jury drawn in this county, and they held their deliberations on a saw log out of doors.

AMUSEMENTS. - A popular amusement in the early days was to assemble the community for a "grand circular hunt." Having selected the territory, which embraced as large a tract as the number of hunters could command, they placed themselves in a circle. on the outside, and drove the game toward a common center. The game thus encircled consisted mainly of wolves and deer, which were always captured or killed in great numbers. The state paid a bounty for wolf scalps in the early days, and this was a source of revenue to the settlers. There. were deer in this county up to 1865. An occasional stray wolf is found now or then, but the foxes are still said to be plentiful in some of the townships north of the Vermilion river.

in their various settlements. For many miles around ,the community would assemble on a Sunday at the cabins of some of the neighbors. In the fall of the year, the pioneers would yoke up their ox-teams and go south over to Mackinaw, in McLean County, to attend camp meeting. This was considered the eyent of the year, and was eagerly anticipated by the younger people, who had not many opportunities of enjoying each other's society and forming new acquaintances.