Blakeman Bridge

As we stated above, the first settlement in the county was made in Hutton Township. In 1824, John Parker and his sons, Benjamin, Daniel, Silas and James Parker, and Samuel Kellogg and his wife, made a settlement here, and composed this first colony of pioneers in Hutton Township. But one of the little band of pilgrims is now alive - the widow of Samuel Kellogg, who lives at present in the city of Charleston. They settled on the Embarrass River, just opposite where the Blakeman Mills now stand. Some of the Parkers afterward settled in Charleston Township, where they are noticed among the early settlers of that section. Most of them moved to Texas years ago, as elsewhere mentioned, and where two or three members of the family suffered severely by the Indians, two of them, at least, losing their lives.* A daughter of James Parker was taken prisoner by the savages, and held for some time in captivity, subjected to all kinds of cruelty. She was married to a man named Plummer, who was killed at the fort where the Parkers were living at the time she was captured. During her captivity among the Indians, she gave birth to a child, which the savages killed before her eyes. Her father had a long search for her,

Passage source: The History of Coles County, Illinois ... Map of Coles County; History of Illinois ... History of Northwest ... Constitution of the United States, Miscellaneous Matters, &c., &c, published 1879.

John Hutton, one of the esteemed citizens of this township, has, probably, been acquainted with Coles County longer than any man now living. There are older residents of the county than he, but none who knew it so early. He assisted the Parkers in moving to this township, in 1824, and spent several days in bee-hunting in the heavy-timbered sections. Says that he was on the ground where Charleston now stands during that trip, and that there is not another man living that can truthfully make the same statement - a fact that is, perhaps, undisputed. While here at that time, he heard the first sermon preached in the present territory ol Coles County. It was in a small log cabin, and though every man, woman and child in the county were present, the house, he says, was by no means crowded.. Daniel Parker preached the sermon, and, at its close, old "Father High Johnny " made the quaint remark quoted in another page : " Brethren, we have wandered far into the wilderness, but even here death will find us."

Passage source: The History of Coles County, Illinois ... Map of Coles County; History of Illinois ... History of Northwest ... Constitution of the United States, Miscellaneous Matters, &c., &c, published 1879.

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 Hutton Township - 18,748 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.