Marion County, Illinois - The whole text, 1909 (part 27 of 27)

Lauraceae

Sassafras (Sassafras Sassafras} - In the woods, a slender tree mainly known for its aromatic bark. It is considered a desirable tree for ornamental use.

Platanaceae

Sycamore (Plat anus. . Occidentals) - Found usually along streams and has a very peculiar and characteristic appearance. The wood' was formerly thought to be without value on account of its tendency to warp, and the difficulty of splitting it, but the former can be overcome by proper kiln drying and its beautiful grain has brought it into prominence for many purposes, and its toughness of fibre has caused it to be used in the making of brushes, etc.

Black Cherry (Pntnns Scrotina). - This tree seldom reaches a large size in this region, though it produces in some quarters wood of the highest value, well known to the lumber trade. Every school boy knows the tree by its strings of somewhat astringent fruit. It must not be confounded, however, with its similar relative the choke cherry, whose fruit is reddish instead of black colored when ripe.

Honey Locust (Gleditschia Triacaiithos) - This rapidly growing tree has sometimes been confounded with the black locust, but usually can easily be told by its enormous sharp pointed spines produced in clusters along the trunk.

Kentucky Coffee Tree (Gymnocladus Dioica) - In the woods, a slender, straight growing tree bearing large bean-like pods. This tree ought to be better known than it is for street planting.

Papilionaceae

Black Locust (Robinia Pseudacacid) - Has sharp pointed prickles on the twigs. Is probably not a native of the county, though often found growing spontaneously.

Aceraceae

Buckeye (Acscnlns Glabra) - A tree of moderate dimensions. As nearly worthless for timber purposes as anything in the list. No doubt, however, some peculiar use for the wood may be found. When the hand fret-saw was common, the wood of this tree was greatly sought after.

Tiliaceae Ebenaceae

Persimmon (Diospyros. Virginia}. - This hardly reaches timber size. Its wood is sometimes used for wood engraving and for turning purposes. It is exceedingly hard and heavy. It is a relative of the tree from which ebony wood is derived.

Oleaceae

White Ash (Fraxinus Americana). - This and green ash are often confounded, but can be told apart by the more vigorous habit of the former and by the light color of the under side of the leaves seen best when looking at the tree in foliage, and by the peculiarities of the seed and fruit.

Green Ash (Fra.rintts Lanccolata) - Usually grows along the banks of streams, while the white Ash is upon higher ground. Both are used for the same purposes, and as the green ash is much more easily propagated from seed, it is more common where artificially grown.

Blue Ash (Fraximts Quadrangulatd) - Differs from the preceding in having sharp ridges of bark on the branchlets, making them somewhat square. Usually found upon well drained soils where it grows into a slender, tall tree.

(For the following sketch we are indebted to Prof. J. E. Whitchurch, student of Illinois University at Urbana, furnished him by Prof. Lloyd.)

In March, 1903, John W. Lloyd, of the Horticultural Department of the University of Illinois, purchased the J. D. Camerer farm, consisting of eighty acres, near Kin- mundy, Marion county, Illinois. This farm occupies the north half of northeast quarter of section 21, township 4 north, range 3 east, and is one mile northwest of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railway station. At the time of the purchase, twenty acres of this farm were in oak brush, and ten acres more had recently been cleared, but had never been touched by a plow. Much of the rest of the land was still filled with stumps. The soil is of the type known as "post-oak flats."

In the spring of 1904, possession was secured, and W. B. Lloyd, father of the owner, moved from Du Page county to take up his residence on this farm, and has remaied there in the capacity of manager since that date.

Immediately upon securing possession, the twelve-acre apple orchard on the farm was thoroughly pruned, and a peach orchard of three acres was planted. The following year, six acres were set to apple trees, consisting entirely of high quality varieties such as Jonathan and Benoni. The policy established upon this farm from the beginning was a selection of varieties and system of management that would result in the production of high quality products.

A specialty has been made of gem melons as the money crop in a three-year rotation, consisting of cow-peas, melons and corn. The cow-peas are cut for hay and fed to everything on the place, including horses, cows, hogs and hens. This crop leaves the land in fine condition for melons. The manure made on the place is carefully saved, and additional manure hauled from town. This is composted with rock phosphate and applied to the melon crop. After this addition of plant food and the thorough tillage required for the melons, the land is in good condition for the production of corn. In 1905, sixty-five bushels of corn by weight were produced upon one measured acre.

The success with melons on this farm has been due to scientific methods of culture, combined with skillful marketing. The seed planted is the best strain obtainable, regardless of cost. Careful and thorough tillage is practiced from the beginning and continued even after the vines have to be turned. Spraying for the rust is also practiced. The melons are carefully graded and attractively packed ; and the best grades are sold under a guarantee as to quality. By this means and by having one firm handle the entire product it has been possible to build up a reputation for the goods and secure remunerative prices.

A similar method has been employed in marketing the poultry products from this farm. The eggs are sold under a guarantee as to freshness and freedom from undesirable flavor such as might be produced by the feeding of onions or other objectionable material. One firm has handled the eggs from this farm for the last four years at prices considerably above the local market.

In furnishing an account of the early pioneer settlers of the east part of section 3, range 4, now Omega township, the writer will be compelled to depend on his memory in regard to date with some of the settlement as entries cannot be referred to, all having settled on government land, this having been preferred on account of the occupants having no tax to pay on the land.

Adam Gallaway was the first settler along the east line of the township in about 1829, erecting a cabin on the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of section 13, town 3, range 4. It was a very good double hewed log house. He improved a small farm. Frederick Songer bought this claim and moved with his family on it in the spring of 1835. In 1838 he entered the east half of the southeast quarter of section 13, town 3, range 4, on which he lived until 1871, and continued to own until his death in 1873, when seventy-eight years old.

Then came Alexander Kyle, a Methodist minister, who built a hewed log house on the northwest quarter of the southeast quarter of section 24, early in 1837. The next settler was James Craig, in the latter part of 1837, who put up a round log house on the southwest quarter of the northeast quarter of section 13, town 3 north, range 4 east, and improved some land, where he lived until his death. Soon after this, along the east line of the township, John Gee located. Robert Shadden, Abraham Beard and Owen Tate also settled along the east line of the township. Thomas Jones and a Mr. Bozier lived about two miles west in the Skillet Fork timber. All lived in log houses which were very poorly provided with light, a hole cut in the wall serving as a window, but minus the glass. They were all provided with wide, deep fireplaces, with backs and jambs made of flat rocks placed in mortar to protect the wood from the fire. The upper part of the chimney was made of slats or lath, surrounded by mortar made of clay. The fire-place had to be made so as to take in a large quantity of big wood to make sufficient heat to keep the family reasonably comfortable : in fact in a very cold time the family had much difficulty in keeping all sides warm, as many of their houses had no protection overhead other than the board roof, but sometimes there were loose boards placed on the joists overhead; and the only floor in some of them was mother earth. In those days the friction match was unknown. If the fire went out, which it would sometimes in warm weather, a member of the family would be compelled to call on some neighbor for fire, or would have to catch fire with flint and steel, gun powder and flax-tow. There was some solid comfort after all in retiring before those big fireplaces, if it was not too cold, and in all of them the cooking had to be done. A full supply of cooking utensils consisted generally of a skillet in which all the corndodgers were baked, also biscuits, if they had any flour, which would be for breakfast and night only on Sunday; a stew kettle, for cooking meat or vegetables, a tea-kettle for heating water, and a coffee boiler.

The farmer in those days was poorly provided with teams and mostly oxen were used, consequently they could cultivate only small farms on which enough corn was grown for bran and to feed stock, with the help of prairie hay to feed cattle and horses, and to fatten their hogs, provided they failed to get fat on white oak acorns. But if the pioneer failed to have fat hogs he could take his rifle and go to the woods and find all the fat deer he wanted, or in fact any kind of wild meat he wanted. Both deer and turkey were plentiful.

the trees to grow. The settlers had much to contend with. The women had to spin and weave the cloth to clothe themselves, the men and the children. The flax had to be grown, cleaned and spun to make the linen; the sheep had to be raised, sheared, the wool carded and spun from which to make the winter clothes. The stockings had to be knit - all was done at home. The worst of all that the old pioneers had to contend with was malarial chills and fever. Through the summer and fall it was no uncommon thing for the father of a family to be down with this dreaded "complaint." The stock had to be protected from the wild beasts; the sheep and calves had to be penned near the house. The wolf was the most destructive. There were three kinds: the little prairie wolf, and the big black and gray wolf. It was very common to hear them howl about the farm, and one not accustomed to hearing them would think when two or three were howling that there were not less than eight or ten. Notwithstanding all these things some of the pioneers laid the foundation for a good, comfortable living in the after part of their life. The first school taught in the eastern part of Marion county was by Alexander Kyle in the southeast quarter of section 23, Omega township, in the old-style log house with dirt floor. The benches were made of split logs. The subjects taught were spelling, reading, writing and arithmetic. Webster's blue-back speller, any book that they had to read in, and Pike & Smiley's arithmetic. This school was supported by sub- scriptipn. This was about 1839 or 1840. Only one term of four months was taught here. The next school building was put up about 1842 or 1843, made of hewed logs, which was used for both church and school. It was located on the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of section 12, town 3, range 4, and was used by the Christian denomination, it being near Skillet Fork creek where there was "much water". The first minister in charge was William Chaffin and later, David R. Chance, Uncle Henry Vandusen and others. The first marriage in that vicinity was Moses Cockrell and Margaret Craig, and the next was Giles M. Songer and Elizabeth Hamilton. From this time on settlers came in more freely, so at this late date I cannot give dates or names of settlers as they located in that part of the county.

The first mills in the eastern part of the county were water mills. In 1836 or 1837, Major John Onstott put up a saw and grist mill on Skillet Fork creek in the northwest quarter of the southwest quarter of section 35, town 3, range 4 east, which he operated for eight of ten years. Finally it was washed around and abandoned. In 1837 Frederick Songer, in company with Samuel Songer put in a water-power saw and grist mill on the Skillet Fork creek, which began operation early in 1838 in the southwest quarter of the southeast quarter of section 3, town i, range 4, now Romine township. The saw mill was an old still sash, and the grist mill was one set of burrs, on which they ground both wheat and corn. It had no cleaning machinery: the grain was ground just as it came to the mill, no matter whether dirty or clean. The bolting machine was one chest about ten feet long, reel about nine feet long, which was operated by hand. Later this mill was washed around, and about 1846 was moved farther up the stream, and rebuilt by Frederick Songer and operated by him until 1851, when he sold it to "Quill" Gordon and Bob Foster. A few years later it was abandoned. This was a fine site for a water mill, if the clay bank had been properly cared for. It is now a waste and few would suppose by the present appearance of the place that a mill had ever been located there.

Eart.Y History

If you had inspected the same territory forty years ago, you would have found nothing but a dense, trackless forest for miles and miles, which was traversed only by the various watercourses. It was by the indefatigable labor of German settlers that the flourishing farms we see today were carved out of the stubborn wilderness.

In the year 1870 five German immigrants came here with their families and purchased tracts of land lying from four to seven miles to the southeast of the town of luka. The names of these pioneers were: Emil Dierolf, John Behrudt, Chris Timm, August Behuke and Louis Hahn. They had not come here immediately upon their arrival in this country, but had spent a few years in Chicago, and by dint of hard work and thrift, had been able to save a small amount of capital. In the heart of the forest they now pitched their tents, and, axe in hand, forthwith began the task of clearing off the trees and underbrush from their newly acquired property. Log houses were built and the ground was gotten ready for cultivation. Within the next few years other settlers joined the brave little band. A time of severe trials was, however, soon to come over them before all their difficulties had been successfully overcome. Most of the settlers had a little money left after securing their land, and there was some apportunity for replenishing their slender resources somewhat by the sale of railroad ties. But owing to the fact that their farming had to be done in a rather primitive way, and was not as yet very profitable, while they were obliged to pay cash for all their supplies, their meager funds soon dwindled away and they were reduced to straitened circumstances for a time. Their troubles were greatly aggravated by the appearance of fever among them, an unwelcome guest, which often comes unbidden where men are cultivating virgin soil and lacking wells or cistern, get their drinking-water from neighboring rivers and creeks. Soon there were fever patients in almost every house. Meantime their work must not be abandoned lest their efforts hitherto be entirely defeated. Those were trying times for the young settlement.

Organization And Growth Of Trinity Church

These early settlers did not forget God, and His Word in the wilderness. While at Chicago they had become acquainted with the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other states, and to this synod they now made application for a minister who might preach to them the Word of God and minister the holy sacraments among them. On April 27, 1873, the Rev. J. G. O. Kattham. of Hoyleton, Washington county, a member of the aforementioned synod, visited the settlement for the first time and continued serving the people from that time forth. Under his guidance a congregation was organized on

September 28, 1873, and at the same time a constitution was adopted. For a number of years divine services were conducted at the various homes, but on November 9> 1876, the members of the congregation began to construct their first church building, which was dedicated to the service of God on the I2th day of August, of the following year, the Rev. Mr. H. Meyer, of East St. Louis preaching the sermon on the occasion. The church was built at a place about four miles southeast of luka, and is still standing, being at present used by the congregation as a school-house.

Four years later, more Lutherans having moved here from elsewhere, the congregation had grown sufficiently strong to support a pastor in their own midst. The first resident minister, the aged Rev. F. W. Eg- ^erking, was inducted into his office on August 15, 1880, by pastor O. Kattham. A parochial school was founded immediately, ind this school is still in operation. It is :he aim of this school that the children be taught not only the common branches :aught in the public schools, and in addition the reading and writing of their German mother tongue, but first and above all things, that they be taught to know and thoroughly understand the doctrinal teachings of their church in order to a firm foundation in their holy Christian faith.

After serving the congregation a little 3ver a year, pastor Eggerking was obliged, an account of old age, to resign his office, ind the congregation once more had to 5eek the help of non-resident ministers.

They did not secure a minister of their own again until November 23, 1883, when Mr. G. F. Luebker, a candidate for the holy ministry from the Lutheran Seminary at Springfield, Illinois, began his labors here. After a stay of only two years, however, the latter accepted a call to a charge in Indiana. The Rev. Mr. A. Kaeslitz succeeded him and served the congregation for a period of sixteen years, beginning with the month of December, 1886. He died suddenly and unexpectedly April 26, 1903, and was buried in the cemetery belonging to the church. In the fall of 1903, the writer of these lines succeeded to the pastorate of the congregation.

Our church has known the day of small things, but, in the course of time, has grown in numbers as well as in grace. At the present time the membership is composed as follows: Thirty-six voting members, one hundred and seventy communicants, two hundred and fifty baptized members. The church now possesses a new and beautiful house of worship, fifty-six by thirty-four feet, with a steeple seventy feet high. The building was erected by Mr. Chris Borcherding, one of the members of the congregation. It was dedicated to the service of God on October n, 1908. and a large concourse of people attended the ceremonies and listened to the sermons preached upon the occasion. Pastor C. Strase of St. Peter, preached the German sermon, and Pastor R. Kissling of Ferren, spoke in the English language. The names of the elders and trustees cf the congregation at the present time are : J. Brinkmann, H. Koenemann, E. Borcherding, A. Rochlitz, Father Lamp and C. Hahn, Sr.

Confession Of Our Church

There being but few Lutheran churches in this part of the state, and various erroneous opinions being in circulation concerning the character of our church, a brief statement of our doctrinal position is herewith given.

We believe that the Holy Scriptures in their entirety were written by the holy prophets, evangelists and apostles, by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and that for this reason they are the Word of God. and the onlv source of spiritual knowledge, since man. however wise and progressive he may be in many temporal affairs, by his own reason does not and can not possess any knowledge concerning things spiritual and divine, except as these have been revealed to us by God in his Word.

Hence we still believe, teach and confess all that the church has confessed in her ancient creeds from the beginning; the doctrines of the Holy Trinity, of the incarnation of the Son of God, and of the redemption of our whole fallen human race by his holy life, suffering and death.

piety, man cannot attain to righteousness before God or eternal salvation, but solely through the merit and righteousness of out- Lord Jesus Christ, appropriated by faith; and that such faith does not come of man's own reason or strength, but it is the work of the Holy Ghost, operating through the preaching of the Word and the holy sacraments (baptism and the Lord's supper).

We teach furthermore, that Christians should avoid sin with great earnestness and be diligent in all good works; not, however, in order that they might by these works merit the grace of God and everlasting life, but in filial obedience to the divine command. In fact, only he can do works that are truly good and acceptable to God, who by faith has become a child of God. On the other hand the true faith can never be void of good works ; neither can it stand with the love of, or clinging to, sin.

We teach and confess that the Holy Spirit ever preserves a Christian church on earth, embracing only such, but certainly all such, who truly believe in Christ as their Savior.

Concerning the end of the world and final judgment, we believe that at the last day, the Son of God will return visibly with power and great glory to judge the world in righteousness. We believe in the resurrection of all the dead and life everlasting for all believers.