Hamlet, Illinois

I would here acknowledge my indebtedness to all those who have kindly furnished assistance in this historical record of the town of Perryton, and I would especially acknowledge my obligaticjns to William Doak, now living among us, and to Abraham Miller, Jr., who since 1847 has resided in Oregon.

Passage source: History of Mercer County : Together with Biographical Matter, Statistics, Etc., Gathered from Mattter Furnished by the Mercer County Historical Society, Interviews with Old Settlers, County, Township and Other Records, and Extracts from Files of Papers, Pamphlets, and Such Other Sources As Have Been Available : Containing Also a Short History of Henderson County, published 1882.

As it may in the future be desirable to know what part of the to\vn once grew timber, I will in brief specity tracts which it occupied in 1845. In the fork of Camp creek, on sections 23 and 24 was some sixty acres of very fine white oak, and there were forty acres of good mixed timber in the southeast corner of section 21. The land that lay between the level and Camp creek on the north on sections 30 and 19, and a little on section 29 had large old white oak trees upon it. On the north side of the creek there was timber, white and burr oak, on KE., KE. 18, on S.E., KW. IS; a little on S.E. of KW. 17, and N.E. of N.E. 16. The broken ground in the southeast corner of the town had some scattering timber, mostly grown since the Indians had left; also most of section 24, and that part of sections 12, 13 and 14 that lay between the two large ravines up to the centre of section 12. The K ^ of 19, S. ^ of 18, S.AV. 17, and north to section 20 was more or less occupied by scattering young black oaks, or, as commonly called, blacks jacks, and white hickory ; also a small body of mixed timber on northeast corner of 16 and southeast corner of 9.

Passage source: History of Mercer County : Together with Biographical Matter, Statistics, Etc., Gathered from Mattter Furnished by the Mercer County Historical Society, Interviews with Old Settlers, County, Township and Other Records, and Extracts from Files of Papers, Pamphlets, and Such Other Sources As Have Been Available : Containing Also a Short History of Henderson County, published 1882.

Tennessee and pioneering in Indiana these early settlers were independent of most of the aids of civilized society ; their clothing was mostly home-made, from wool and flax ; a spring pole mortar pounded their meal ; their axes built houses, fences and implements ; their rifles repleted emjDty larders. Those who were the earliest settlers of the ridge south of Camp creek were from Pennsylvania and other eastern states, and being less practiced in the art of pioneering were subject to more privations and experienced more difficulties in supplies of meat and bread. Mr. Peny says that they were obliged to go to Kickapoo, in Peoria county, for their milling in 1836, and to Henderson for blacksmithing ; yet there must have been mills near Henderson, for "William Doak relates an experience in going there to mill in the winter of 1837-8, when with two neighbors he made the trip with a wagon and three yoke of oxen. In order to pass two farms before a supply of corn for a grist could be obtained they were obliged to make a wide detour to the east, became lost in the night upon the trackless ])rairie, were obliged to break ice and ford streams, and only near morning, wet and frozen, they reached the second place, where they bought and shelled the last of their grist.

Passage source: History of Mercer County : Together with Biographical Matter, Statistics, Etc., Gathered from Mattter Furnished by the Mercer County Historical Society, Interviews with Old Settlers, County, Township and Other Records, and Extracts from Files of Papers, Pamphlets, and Such Other Sources As Have Been Available : Containing Also a Short History of Henderson County, published 1882.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Perryton Township - it names this place 28 more 28 times.