McLean County, Illinois - Chapter 2: Early White Settlements, 1924

Chapter 2: Early White Settlements

FIRST SETTLEMENT IN 1822 - PIONEER FAMILIES - BLOOMING GROVE - NATURAL RESOURCES - DIGGING SALT - SETTLERS OF 1824-1825 - EARLY CONDITIONSBREAKING THE PRAIRIE - HAVENS GROVE - STERLING QUALITIES OF PIONEERS - FIRST MINISTER AND ORGANIZED CHURCH - WEATHER AS A GOVERNING FACTOR - DEEP SNOW OF 1831 - "BIG FREEZE" OF 1836 - HARDSHIPS OF PIONEERS* - PASTIMES AND SPORTS.

It was four years after the state of Illinois had been admitted to the Union, that the first white families came to make their homes in that part of the state now known as McLean County. The state had only 45,000 people within its confines when it sought admission to the Union in 1818. At that time the settlemens were all in the southern part of the state. Vandalia had been made the state capital and also the county sea of Fayette County, which then included a large territory stretching far up into the central portion of the state.

John Hendrix and John M. Dawson with their families came west from Ohio in the fall of 1821 and settled in Sangamon County, which included the present area of McLean County. The following April, 1822, they moved northward, and reaching a beautiful grove of timber decided to build themselves cabins. This was the beginning of the settlement of Blooming Grove, about four miles southeast of the present site of the city of Bloomington.

One can imagine the hard conditions under which these first settlers lived. Mr. and Mrs. Hendrix were the first white couple to build a home in the Grove. Mr. Dawson came with them, but left his family in Sanga- mon County. There was a man named Segar also in the party. Mr. and Mrs. Hendrix became parents of eight children. They lived on the farm where they first settled until their deaths. The Hendrix place afterward became the property of 0. H. P. Orendorff. When Mr. Dawson finally brought his family to Blooming Grove, he settled on a farm afterward owned by David Cox. John Hendrix was a native of Virginia, and John W. Dawson was a native of Kentucky. They met in Ohio prior to their migration to Illinois in 1821.

The little colony at Blooming Grove formed the whole world in this vicinity, so far as white men were concerned. There were no other houses north of this settlement until Chicago were reached. A few men engaged in digging salt at where Danville now stands, and a few miners near Galena composed all the northern Illinois settlements.

Reports from this part of the country having drifted back to the older settlements, other pioneers soon began to arrive. Gardner Randolph and family came in December, 1822. In the spring of 1823, John Benson, a soldier of the war of 1812, came with his family and lived in a linn bark hut at the Grove. In the same year, the Stringfield family, consisting of the widow and her sons, Severe and Alfred, settled at what is now known as Randolph Grove.

Isaac Funk and Absalom Funk came to this county in 1824 and settled at the timber which became known as Funk's Grove. William and Thomas Orendorff came to Blooming Grove the year previous. Then there was an old Quaker, Ephraim Stout and his son Ephraim, Jr., settled at what became known as Stout's Grove. Robert Stubblefield and his family and Thomas 0. Rutledge were among the other arrivals at about this time.

The year 1825 saw many accessions to the McLean County settlements. Rev. Peyton Mitchell came to Stout's Grove in March, and in the fall of the year Jonathan Cheney made a settlement at the Grove now called Cheney's Grove. William Evans, Rev. Ebenezer Rhodes and Rev. James Stringfield were others who arrived at the Blooming Grove settlement.

These early settlers had to live the simple life. They had to go as far as Attica, Ind., to get their grain milled. They lived largely on game and milk from their few cows, with some little flour which they ground from corn. Rev. Ebenezer Rhodes had erected a mill in the year 1825.

no child's play. It required five or six yoke of oxen to draw the plow. The settlers raised their own wool and flax and wove their own cloth. The wolves were the chief enemy of the sheep. Large bounties for wolf scalps were offered by the settlers, and at last the legislature also offered rewards for killing these beasts. If the settlers succeeded in raising a number of cattle, they had to drive them to market at Pekin, Peoria or Chicago. From the very first, the Funk family were the largest cattle raisers.

The name for the first settlement came about in a natural way. There were many flowers blossoming in the Grove, and Mrs. William Orendorff suggested that it be called Blooming Grove. Thomas Orendorff and John Rhodes in letters written about this time first gave the name to the settlement. One story is' to the effect that previously it had been called Keg Grove, because the Indians had found a keg of whiskey there.

Between the years 1823 and 1830 there were many other settlements made in various parts of what is now McLean County. In August, 1826, the Trimmer family arrived and located at Smith's grove. Jacob Spawr, who afterward became one of the oldest men in the county, at first lived with the Trimmers.

During the early summer of 1827, Stephen Webb, William McCord, George and Jacob Hinshaw settled either at Blooming Grove or Dry Grove. Matthew Robb and Robert McClure came to the county at the same time, settling at Stout's Grove. In 1828 the Francis Barnard and the Henline families settled on the north of the Mackinaw river on Henline creek. The Conger family settled near Stout's Grove the same year.

The year 1830 saw important accessions to the county settlements. Jesse Havens settled at a grove near where Hudson now stands and which became known as Havens Grove. Benjamin Wheeler also settled there. Most of the early settlers chose the timber tracts for settlement, owing to their natural protection from storm, wild animals and Indians. At that time nobody thought the prairie would ever be settled up at all.

From the earliest days, the population of McLean County has been known for its strong and substantial character, its religious cast, if you please. This may be due in large part to the sterling qualities of the first settlers. John Hendrix was a deeply religious man, and the first church services held in this county were held at his home, conducted by Rev. James Stringfield. Rev. Ebenezer Rhodes, the first minister who settled at Blooming Grove, in 1824, soon organized a congregation or eight per-

In the earlier settlement of this state there was a class of immigrants who formed a floating population. They never stayed long at any one place. They drifted about seeking the easiest places to eke out a precarious livelihood. This class of settlers did not find much welcome in the Blooming Grove neighborhood. Messrs. Hendrix, Dawson and the others wanted men and women of substantial character to come and live here, and these always found genuine welcome and what help could be afforded them in getting established. By the time of the organization of the county government, there were several hundreds of families, nearly all of this solid and substantial character.

So near to nature did the early settlers live;that the weather was one of the governing factors of their lives. Therefore any great natural phenomenon was recorded in their memories. One of these great red letter events was the deep snow of the winter of 1830-31. The weather during the fall had been dry and so continued until late in the winter, with mild temperature. But in the latter part of December there came a snow the .like of which none of the settlers had ever known. It snowed from four to six feet deep all over the landscape. The settlers were literally penned in their cabins, and could do little but grind their corn to eat and keep their wood fire burning to keep warm. A great deal of stock was frozen to death. Deer grew tame, and wolves came to the settlement for protection and to scout for food. Stories of the "deep snow" formed a stock in trade for reminiscences by the old settlers until all the generation who had remembered it had passed away. In the spring of 1831, when the snow melted, the whole country was covered with sloughs and ponds.

Another of the natural phenomena which created a lasting impression on the early settlers was the big freeze of December, 1836. The weather had been mild, with rains following the snows, changing to slush. One afternoon the temperature dropped 60 degrees in a few hours, falling from 40 above to 20 below zero. The country assumed the aspect of the arctic regions. Stock and men alike who were caught out in the storm were frozen to death if they were unable to reach shelter. Chickens were frozen fast in their tracks, and great suffering resulted to man and beast.

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the soil and their surroundings enough of the actual necessities to keep them in fair comfort, although they lacked all of what we consider today the luxuries of life. They provided food and shelter, clothing and some means of transport. They traveled long distances on horseback or with a crude wagon to get their wheat or corn milled and to barter for or buy the other necessities of their lives. Owing to the constant danger of prairie fires, they never left their homes without the fear that when they returned they would find their fields, houses and barns a mere blackened waste. And yet they lived on and built up here this great community of civilized and educated people of McLean County today.

And yet the people of the early settlements, especially the young people, had their amusemeaits of the kind that their circumstances afforded. There were no theaters, clubs, daily papers, magazines, or libraries. The people therefore sought most of their pastimes in the great outdoors. Horse racing was the favorite sport for the men, since nearly every family had horses, and it was an event when the young men met to test the speed of their favorite animals against each other. Foot-racing by the men themselves, wit hwrestling, boxing and other athletic pastimes furnished diversions from the hard everyday life of the pioneer. There was no baseball in those days, no schools with their football and basketball teams; no coaches nor uniformed teams in various lines of athletics as there are today. Life in sport as well as in everything else was of a simpler sort in the early days of the county.

For the women, dancing and other indoor games were the pastimes of most popularity. Whole neighborhoods would come for miles to attend a dance, and some of the young people of that day developed remarkable skill and grace in waltzing, quadrille, Virginia reel and other forms of the dance. Spelling bees and singing schools were also of common occurrence.

Hunting was indulged in both for the sport of it, the chase and to furnish meats for the families. Deer, wild turkey, geese and ducks, quail, and prairie chickens were common among the food animals; while wolves, foxes, wildcats and other "varmints" were killed to rid the settlements of their destructiveness. Many times a large wolf hunt was organized, and the really dangerous beasts were rounded up a«id killed in numbers. The advent of the railroads took away the truly pioneer character of the country; made communication more rapid and convenient, and began the modern era of the county.