Peoria County, Illinois - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 23 of those read), 1880 (part 2 of 2)

Surveyors And Surveys

County surve3'ors may appoint deputies who may perform any of the duties of the office ; and any acts done by them are as valid as if done by the county surveyor. Chainmen and other persons must be employed by the person requiring the survey done. The chainmen must be disinterested, and approved of by the surveyor and sworn by him to measure justly and impartially. It is the surveyor's duty, either by himself or deputy, to make all surveys that he may be called upon to make, as soon as may be after application ; and he must make the surveys in accordance with the original surve3's and the laws of the United States governing surveys. And when requested he must furnish the person for whom the survey is made with a copy of the original field notes or plat of the survey. He must keep a book for public inspection containing every survey made by him, the date of the survey, the name of the person whose land is surveyed, the metes and bounds of the land, and the date on which the survey is made. A certified copy of this book under the hand of the surveyor is prima fade evidence of the facts therein stated. No record or act of any surveyor or his deputy is conclusive, but may be received by any competent tribunal.

Church Organization

Any church, society or congregation, formed for the purpose of religious worship, may become incorporated by electing or appointing, according to its usages, at a meeting held for that purpose, two of its members trustees, wardens, vestrymen or other officers whose powers and duties are similar to those of trustees ; and at such meeting it may adopt a corporate name. The secretary or chairman of the meeting should file for record in the office of the recorder of deeds in the county where the church, society or congregation is organized an affidavit substantially in the following form : insert their names) were elected (or appointed) trustees, (or wardens, vestrymen or other officers) according to the rules and usages of such church (congregation or society). And said church (or society or congregation) adopted as its corporate name (here insert the name). And at said meeting this affiant acted as (chairman or secretary).

Upon filing this affidavit, as aforesaid, the church, society or congregation becomes a body politic or corporate, by the name so adopted. The property of the old organization vests in the new corporation. It may acquire by gift, devise or purchase real estate not exceeding ten acres in quantity and erect suitable buildings thereon ; and for camp- meeting purposes it may acquire not exceeding forty acres and put such improvements thereon as may be necessary for its comfort and convenience. It may publish and circulate religious books, tracts, etc. Existing societies may become organized under this act.

Form Of Bell Of Sale Or Purchase

the said , vendor, herein, for and heirs, executors, administrators and assigns, do hereb}' covenant to and with the said liis heirs executors, adminiitrators and assigns, that said vendor lawfully possessed of the said goods and chattels as of own property, that the same are free from all incumbrances, and that will, and heirs, executors and administrators shall, day of A. D. 18 - he will (here insert in what way CD. agrees to pay the consideration, whether cash in hand, note secured by mortgage or how).

whicli they hereby fix and liquidate as the amount of damages to be paid by the party failing to keep this contract, for his non-performance, to the other party.

The stipulations herein contained shall extend to and be binding upon the heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns of the parties hereto.

Foem Op Bond General Form Of Will

Second. I give, devise and bequeath unto my beloved wife, , in addition to all dower interests which she may have in real estate, at any time, owned by me, one thousand dollars in money, to be paid her within one year after my decease.

Fifth. All the residue of my property of every kind and description, I give and devise unto my said children, to be divided in equal jjart^ between them.

Signed, sealed, published and declared by the said A. B. as and for his last will and testament in the presence of us, who, in his presence, and in the presence of each other, and at his request, have subscribed our name^ as witnesses thereto.

Form Of Codicil

Signed, sealed, published and declared by the said A. B., as and for a codicil to his last will and testament in the presence of us, who, in his presence, and in the presence of each other, and at his request, have subscribed our names as witnesses thereto.

Part Iii Prologue

Less than three-quarters of a century ago, the territory included in Peoria county was a wilderness, to the interior of which no white man had ever penetrated. From a savage wild, marked only by the Indian villages and traces of the bloody conflicts of their tribes, the histories of which were recorded on rude, unspeaking tablets of stone or in dumb mounds of earth, the wilderness has become a center of civilization - the home and school of soldiers, statesmen, scientists, learned judges, eloquent ministers, distinguished orators - men known and honored, not only at home, but among the titled dignitaries of the old world. Schools, colleges, churches and busy manufactories, highly cultivated and princely farms and farm houses, mark the camping places and battle grounds of the wild red men who once held dominion over these prairie plains, forestcovered hills and picturesque valleys. Cities, towns and villages occupy the places once dotted over with Indian wigwams. Great iron bridges, triumphs of engineei-ing skill, span the rivers where once bark canoes served as ferries for the wild men, their women and children. The stillness of morning hours, once awakened by the guttural tones of savage hordes, is now broken by the music of steam-driven printing presses, from which a daily epitome of the world's history is issued with the rising of every sun. Railroad and telegraph lines, adjuncts and agencies of the highest type of civilization and intelligence, mark the courses of the trails the Indians made from village to village, from forest to stream, or "over the hills and far away."

Of the land-marks of the " long ago," but few are left as the children of the forest and prairie wilds left them, when white men despoiled them of their possessions, and drove them to other homes and hunting grounds.

There are a few person still living in Peoria county who witnessed the sight of a remnant of a race of men departing forever from their early homes, and some of them, as well as some of the j^ounger generation, will, no doubt, be disposed to sneer at the pen which finds a source of melancholy in the contemptation of such an event. But great minds have suggested, and worthy hands have written lines of living power upon this theme ; nor can the harsh character of fact denude the subject of a glamor which poetry and romance have cast around the dusky victim and his fate. There is a grandeur in the record of the race which the stern force of truth is powerless to dispel.

As a State Illinois dates from the 3d day of December, 1818 - sixty-one years ago in December of 1879. The permanent settlement of the territory included in Peoria county commenced in the Spring of 1819 - a little more than sixty years ago, at the time of this writing (Sept. 1879), so that the admission of Illinois as a State and the settlement of Peoria county by Americans, date from almost the same time.

These sixty years have been full of change and of history. The early history of the Territory and of the State has been as elaborately followed as the compass of a volume of this character will permit, and we come now to the local histor}' of the county. Fortunately for the purposes of this undertaking, some of the first settlers are still living, to guide our thoughts from the very first to the present. Besides venerable and worthy Josiah Fclton, there are still others of the pioneers and early settlers who are within accessible range of the writer, so that he hopes this part of his offering will be accurate and complete in every detail.

If a reliable history of the county is ever written, it must be written while those who are a part of that history are still living. One by one they are passing away, and it will not be long until there will be none left to assist in gathering up the fragments of history that lie scattered along the course of six decades. " If we had realized, in those earlj- daj's," remarked one of the these pioneers to the writer, " that we were making history, a detailed record cf events would have been transcripted from week to week. But what incentive had we for such a task ? There were no startling incidents in our daily lives. Many of us came here supposing this would only be a temporar)- abidingplace. It was a struggle for existence. For one of us to iiave predicted tlie development of the country to its present condition within tlie lifetime of any of the settlei-s from 1820 to 1830, or even later, would have been ample ground for writing him down as either a silly dreamer or a positive lunatic. We began on so small a scale that the idea of preserving our movements in the form of a record never entered our minds. Had we tlie same experience to go through with again, we would profit by our mistakes and negligences of the past, and be able to produce reliable data for the historians who would come after us."

The history of a county is usually little more than the compilation of imperfect records, partial traditions and vague legends. Very few of the counties have preserved, with proper care, the archives of the earliest days of their existence. As a rule, societj' was crude, and men were unsuited by inexperience to places of oflBcial responsibility. No one tjiought the careless transcripts of primary meetings would one day form the staple of history. The duty of serit)e was irksome to most of the pioneers, when necessity compelled some written evidence of organizing transactions ; and short and incomplete were the minutes of almost ever}' public .assembly.

History is but a record of to-day, when time's leaf shall have been turned over for to-morrow's writing. Each act in one's life may be a topic of importance in the pages yet to be written. Nothing is too trivial or uninteresting in tlie routine of affairs of those who mingle witii public men, to be unworthy of a place in the diary of the local recorder of events. Some minor matter may serve to corroborate and affirm the time and method of a far greater occurrence.

Brief, indeed, were tlie days between the era of savagery and the era of civilization. But, sliort as it m.ay seem, the intervening period of time was sufiiiMent for the sowing of seeds whicli ripened into the fulness of a jjientiful harvest. The iiand of intelligent man was lai<l upon this region but yesterday as it were ; to-day, one beholds the finest and best tilled farms, the richest orchards, the most substantial buildings, and the newest implements of husbandr}- the ingenuity of man has devised.

Where once the fierce blasts of Winter howled with increasing velocity over unobstructed plains, thick groves of timber now stands lus barriers between man and the elements, in silent protest against their forces. Modern inventive genius has found a way to meet the requirements for fences. The mines of coal that underlie nearly every foot of the county afford an inexhaustible supply of fuel, so that the timber groves are prized more for the sake of their protective qualities than for the intrinsic wortli of their products. Where once the single camp fire of the lonely hunter wreathed its slender spire of smoke as he reposed, solitary and silent, near the haunts of the deer, now ascend the choking fumes of many furnaces, as they glow and roar in the busy centers of manufacture.

Wealth has succeeded poverty, and privation has given way to comfort. The chiklren of the pioneers have grown up surrounded by refining influence, and bear the stamp of training in a broader school than it was the privilege or the fortune of their parents to attend. Books and music have their appropriate places in almost every farm-house, and social intercourse is no longer restricted to the range of ox-cart communication. The finest iiorses, the choicest animals, the largest herds graze in rich pastures. It is no longer necessar}' to " turn the cattle into the big lot," as one of the pioneers expressed his early method as caring for his patient oxen. Fences mark the boundaries and subdivision of farms. As year succeeded year, flocks and herds increased in number and condition, and are still increasing ; and the markets of the East, nay, of Europe, find profit in choosing from the cattle of a thousand pastures.

Where the settlers were compelled to traverse the country overland, ascend or descend the river for hundreds of miles for flour and provisions, consuming days, and even weeks, in tedious journeys, there are now busy mills, which, besides supplying the local needs of communities, help to increase the commerce of the country by shipments to other and distant localities. Nor is it longer necessary to rely upon the uncertain visits of neighbors to distant post-offices and the fortunate possession of a quarter of a dollar, to secure a letter from friends in the old home. The system of postal delivery reaches the farther limits of the country, and letter postage is reduced from twenty-five cents to less than one-eight of that sum, and the rapid transit of news matter is an established certainty, accepted without astonishment, or even a second thought. From surprise and interest manifested when the mail did come, it has changed to wonder when it don't come to the ver}- minute of schedule time. From an occasional weekly newspaper, taken from some of the older States forty years ago, almost every household reads the daily and weekly publications, issued from steam presses in their own midst. These publications, too, take high rank among the thousands of other newspapers of tlie State and nation. They are conducted by gentlemen and ladies of culture, and carry the news from the four quarters of the earth to the remotest hamlet. Telegraphic wires bring to the very doors and counting rooms of liusiness houses tidings from the great commercial centers, and tell producer and dealer when and how to dispose of the enormous products of factory and farm. Telephones connect office with office and residence with residence, so that friends living in remote quarters of cities can visit and converse with friends without leaving their respective domiciles. Banking institutions of solid worth exist in almost every town and village in the count)', and monetary matters are conducted on as large a scale as in many an Eastern city founded more than a hundred and fifty years ago. Social clubs and amusement societies relieve the routine of business after the approved methods of cosmopolitans. Secret societies flourish and celebrate their mystic rites in richlyappointed lodge rooms, and hold honored rank among the general bodies of their respective orders.

Social circles are as brilliant and cultured in character as any that grace the salons of Eastern capitals. Wealtli and refinement are evidenced in the bearing of the people. The honest house-wife of the olden time ma}' look with distrust upon the grander display of civil ceremonies, but is powerless to stay the tide as it sets toward the obliteration of simple habits. There may be much truth in the oft-repeated assurance that "girls were worth more in the early days,"' if the estimate of excellence be based upon physical prowess and domestic " faculty;" but it must be remembered that each generation plays its separate part in the drama of life. As the poet has written of individuals,

" * * All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players ; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts."

in a role different from that which preceded it. The standard by which to measure woman's miglit to-<lay is not that which tested her qualities as a pioneer, but ratlier that which proves the use she has made of the advantages of the present. It would be as just to condemn the young man of to-daj* because he is not drilled in woodcraft and able to read the marks of Nature like the wild red man. The fathers who paved the way for the introduction of modern ideas needed, perforce, to know the signs b}- which the Indian chief governed the warriors of his band. But those symbols are obsolete now, and would encumber the mind with useless information.

The man whose genius introduced the principles of mechanics int* the working of farms signed the last pages of the first volume of the history of the pioneers and inaugurated a new era, from which the present power of man must be calculated. The farmer who tills a tiiousand acres now, is surely no weaker than lie whose limits were one hundred in the " good old days." Yet the muscular development has not increased duriniij the years that are covered by this history. It Ls mind, not matter, which governs, and the tendency of this age, which is truly termed the mediaeval, is to produce maximum results from minimum forces. The laborious methods of planting and harvesting by hand have given way to the more admirable plan of employing mechanical devices to do the work.

Peoria count}' ranks her neighboring counties in just the degree that her intelligence has progressed. The end is far away, for the improvements over the original settlement are insignificant compared with the capalnlities of her men and the possibilities of her resources. Nature has lavished abundant wealth upon her, and it remains for man to extract it from the eartli. The farms are inexhaustible in productive returns, if properly cultivated. The future promises much more marked changes in every branch of trade and commerce, and there remains for her inhabitants a golden and enviable harvest of results.

Pleasant for situation, rich in material wealth, peopled b}- intelligent men and abounding in an atmosphere of mental health, the County of Peoria is destined to occupy, in time to come as it has in the past, a leading position in the Great Northwest. The responsiljility of working out and maintaining this destiny is entrusted to good and true men ; and the dawn of the twentieth century will behold in this fair region a source of constant pride.

To the brave pioneers who planted the standard of civilization in the fairest part of the country of the Peorias, Pottawatomies and Kickapoos, and the early and subsequent settlers who followed them until the wilderness was reduced to fruitful fields, belongs the honor of working out the great changes herein noted. To the men and women who came and dwelt in sod houses and log caliins, who subsisted on hominy and wild game till farms were started and made sufliciently productive to afford better fare ; who slept on prairie bedsteads ; who clothed their feet in buckskin muccasins, and their bodies in garments of the same, or fabrics entirely the result of their own handiwork, belongs the honor of laying the foundations of and giving strength and vitality to that forward movement that filled the country with wealth and jirosju'rity. Tiiey began the work of converting the wild lands into civilized abodes with no other assistam-e than stout hearts and i)rawny arms. The patient ox, the sharp axe, the primitive hoe, the old-fashioned hand sickle, grain cradle, and the .scythe were their only dependence. Machine art in the cultivation of farms was but an embryo thought in the minds of inventors, and those who favored the develoiiinent of that thought into the perfection of machinery for planting, tilling and harvesting crops of grain, and its innovation upon time-followed customs, were tabooed and regarded with jiitiful astonishment.

Hut more than all else, the pioneers who made the first bold strokes for homes in the beautiful country of the Peorias were almost without an exception, poor. Had there been unlimited numbers of approved appliances for agriculture at their very doors, they could not have availed themselves of the opportunities from lack of means. And therein lies the pith and marrow of tlie credit due this advance guard. From nothing but that which nature lavishly supplied, they builded strong and well. They labored with the industrious energy of heroes, and deserved the reward of veterans.

The speculator and the capitalist who bought large tracts of laud and allowed it to remain as nature left it, never added a single dollar to the acquired wealth of the country. Their possessions increase in value as the pioneers and early settlers improved the lands upon which they settled to make homes. Not to the men who, by some turn of fortune's wheel become possessed of " corner lots '" and hold them for an advance in prices, belongs the honor of building cities, but to the liberal, sometimes almost reckless, enterprising men with more heart and energy than love of gain, is that honor due.

There is still another class that play a conspicuous part in the growth, development and progress of countrj', towns and cities, and that is the bold, ambitious men who start pioneer newspapers. We say start, because but few of them continue their undertakings for any great length of time. Their effoi-ts are not appreciated, and their journals are allowed to die for want of support. The sickliest issue of the sickliest newspaper ever printed accomplishes more to invite attention to the locality in which it is published, than a thousand letters from friends to friends. There is not a newspaper printed in Peoria county to-day, no matter liow dyspeptic or seemingly reckless its editor, but is doing more to foster the country's " boom," maintain its supremacy and encourage the enterprises of big hearted men than all other agencies combined. And yet no class of men receive a stingier acknowledgment. Uncounted thousands of dollars have been sunk, ambitions crushed, constitutions shattered and lives wasted by individuals in newspaper enterprises, but these personal sacrifices have always been the country's gain. The pioneer journalists are civilization's most faithful sentinels, and their memory deserves to be enthroned in the grateful hearts of an intelligent posterity.