Madison County, Illinois - Chapter 8: Early Glimpses of the County, 1912

The most interesting, as well as the most authentic, historical and descriptive matter is that which is "written on the spot/' or what may be termed current literature. Madison county is fortunate in being able to present sev¬ eral specimens of such material drawn from historical personages and reliable sources, as witness what follows.

Gov. Edward Coles made his first visit to Illinois in 1815, four years prior to his settle¬ ment here. Following is an extract from a letter he wrote in 1861 from Philadelphia to Hon. W. C. Flagg : "Although peace had been declared for some months with England, it had not been made with the Indians on my first visit to Illinois in October, 1815. I was as¬ sured, at \ incennes, that there were no houses of accommodation on the way, and, moreover, it was not safe from Indian massacre to go from there direct to St. Louis, but that I would have to go by way of Shawneetown and Kaskaskia. I his I did and passed up from the lat¬ ter town through the comparatively old and thick American settlements to Aladison, then a frontier county which had but recently been laid out, and its seat of justice (Edwardsville) located on Thomas Kirkpatrick's farm. There was but one small log cabin on the site of the old town of Edwardsville, and that having no person in it when I passed, and seeing no marks to show the town had been laid out, I passed on the road over the site without know¬ ing I had done so. At the creek, at the north end of the intended county town, was a mill which, together with its dam, was in such a dil¬ apidated state as not to admit of its being used. I passed on through Rattan's prairie, where there resided several families, to the banks of the Mississippi river, where there was a small improvement at the outlet of a rivulet at the south of where Alton was afterwards located. I was told there were then but four or five families residing to the north of that. From this point I descended through the American Bottom to St. Louis. After examining the surrounding country and making a purchase of land, I proceeded to New Orleans, and thence through the seaboard country to my mother's home on my native spot in Virginia."

In answer to inquiries from Hon. W. C. Flagg, as to some early data concerning Mad¬ ison county, Gov. John Reynolds wrote from Belleville, under date of March 11, 1861: "I first saw Goshen, now Madison county, in Feb¬ ruary, 1807, and I lived there until the close of the War of 1812 (*. 1815). I have been in it and about it down to the present time. I was in and saw Camp Russell, on various oc¬ casions, and was at times a resident of it in 1813. I first saw it in the fall of 1812. It was an acre or more surrounded by a stockade, with several small block houses within. I do not recollect definitely the size or form of the camp. I think the original limits of Madison county when Governor Edwards and company formed it, were bounded on the south by the line dividing townships two and three north, and on the west by the Mississippi river. The northern limits, I think, reached the north pole, and on the east was the Wabash river. John Messenger, in 1806 or 1807, surveyed Mad¬ ison county, or the country that made Madison into townships, and by them the county was formed as above stated."

Peck's Gazetteer, published in 1834, has the following notes on Madison county as it ap¬ peared at that time, which we have condensed : "Madison county is watered by Silver and Cahokia creeks and their branches, and by Wood river. Coal and building stone are abundant. Around Alton and along Wood river and Cahokia creek is one of the finest, bodies of timber in the state.

"Cahokia creek rises in Macoupin county, runs in a southeasterly direction through Mad¬ ison and empties into the Mississippi two miles below the ferry at St. Louis. Along its borders are fifty or sixty mounds of various shapes and sizes,

"Canteen creek rises in Ridge prairie, in the south part of Madison, runs in a western course and enters Cahokia creek in the Ameri¬ can bottom.

"Chouteau's island is in the Mississippi river, in the southwestern part of Madison county. It is four miles long and a mile and a half wide and has several families living on

"Clifton - On the banks of the Mississippi four miles above Alton. Here is a landing, a steam saw-mill, an excellent free stone quarry and a quarry of water cement lime¬ stone.

"Collinsville - A village, postoffice and set¬ tlement, in the south part of Madison county. Here is a store, a large mill for sawing and grinding and several mechanics. A Presbyter¬ ian church of fifty members, a large Sabbath school, and a body of sober, moral, industrious citizens, render this an interesting settlement.

"Edwardsville, the seat of justice for Mad¬ ison county, is situated in township four, in range eight west, twenty-one miles northeast of St. Louis on the Springfield road and twelve miles southeast from Alton. It has a court house and jail of brick, a land office, four stores, two taverns, two physicians, four lawyers, a castor oil factory, various mechanics and about seventy families. Here is also a female academy taught by a lady. The Bap¬ tists and Methodists each have houses of wor¬ ship. The inhabitants are generally indus¬ trious, intelligent, moral and a large propor¬ tion professors of religion. The location of Edwardsville is pleasant, on high ground, healthy, and in the centre of a fertile, well watered and well-timbered country settled with enterprising farmers.

"Looking Glass Prairie - A large, rich, beautiful and undulating prairie. It com¬ mences near the base line, in range six west, extends north into Madison county, and is from six to ten miles in width.

menced in December, 1816, by Daniel Allen and John and Paul Harriford, and was then the most northern white settlement in the Illi¬ nois territory. Kane postoffice is in this settle¬ ment.

"Marine - A flourishing settlement, between the east and west forks of Silver creek and twelve miles east of Edwardsville. This settle¬ ment was commenced by Captains Blakeman and Allen in 1819. The settlement is large and is spread over an undulating, rich and beauti¬ ful prairie.

"Piasau - A small stream that rises in a beautiful tract of country near the line of Greene and Macoupin counties and enters the Mississippi ten miles above Alton.

"Ridge Prairie is situated near Edwardsville and extends south to St. Clair county. It is on the dividing ridge between the waters that fall into the Mississippi on the west and those that flow to the Ivaskaskia east. Its surface is generally undulating, the soil is rich, has many fine farms. Ridge Prairie postoffice was es¬ tablished in 1833, George Churchill, post¬ master.

"Silver creek rises in the northern part of Madison county and runs south into St. Clair and enters the Kaskaskia. It is named from the supposed existence of silver, not far from Rock Spring, where the early French explor¬ ers made considerable excavations.

"Six Mile prairie is in the southwestern part of Madison, a rich alluvion with fine farms and surrounded by a heavy body of timber. Rather unhealthy.

"Wood river in Madison county enters the Mississippi nearly opposite the mouth of the Missouri. It rises in Macoupin and runs through a fine country."

We publish the above excerpts for the pur¬ pose of giving opportunity for the reader to compare the present with the past, and to note that while some places have advanced others have declined, and names have changed.

The matter of changes of climate has al¬ ways been a subject of interest, but the fol¬ lowing observations by Dr. Peck indicate that there has been no radical change in this re¬ spect since the first settlement of the county. His record recites : "The mean climate of the different seasons is as follows, the figures be¬ ing in degrees Fahrenheit: spring, 54.74; summer, 74.34; autumn, 60.77; winter, 34.53. The greatest extreme of heat and cold during my residence in the country of seventeen years in the vicinity of St. Louis is as fol¬ lows: Greatest heat in July, 1820, and in July, 1831, 100 degrees. Greatest cold January 3, *8 degrees below zero. There was a great proportion of clear days throughout the year. Dr. Beck, who resided in St. Louis dur¬ ing the year 1820, made observations on the changes of the weather with the following re¬ sults : Clear days, 245 ; cloudy, including all variable days, no. The results of my own observation, kept for twelve years with the exception of 1826, do not vary in any material way from the above statement." This is so near what the record would show for any year of late that it might well be taken as a report of current conditions.

On the 24th and 25th of April, 1910, de¬ structive frosts visited this county, killing the leaves on the forest trees and utterly destroy¬ ing the fruit crop. That this was not unpre¬ cedented is shown by the following old rec¬ ord: "Destructive frost - On the night of April 26, 1834, this county was visited by a frost which killed the leaves on the white mul¬ berry, black locust, honey locust, catalpa, wal¬ nut, hickory, ash, persimmon and other trees. The foliage of the apple trees was not injured date in the month of April. The lowest sum¬ mer temperature known in this county since 1836 was August 30, 1863, when the ther¬ mometer registered 45 degrees above zero.