Hotel Roodhouse

It was in 1819 that Benjamin Drummond came from Madison County, to the northern part of this county, near wliere Roodhouse is now situated. Dr. Thaxton, Jesse Allen, Jesse Morrow, William Waltrip, William Thaxton, Larkin Thaxton, and others, are also set down as arriving during 1819. This was i-eally the first year during which immigration was at all brisk. The country was rapidly filling up and the red man was almost entirely banished, and rapid growth and improvement were the order of the day.

Passage source: History of Greene County, Illinois : Its Past and Present, Containing a History of the County ; Its Cities, Towns, Etc. ; a Biographical Directory of Its Citizens ; War Record.., published 1879.

The winter of 1819 and '20 proved to be an unusually severe one. The long grass of the prairies had been destroyed by fires lighted by the Indians "or hunters, and much of the undergrowth in the woods was killed by the same element. Before the close of the winter, the provisions gathered by them for their stock, from places where it had escaped the ravages of the fire, gave out and they were compelled to cut down trees, from the boughs of which the cattle and horses could procure a scanty supply of food. Many of these wandered away and were lost, while some of ^tliem died from the effects of cold and hunger. The supply of food for themselves and families proved to be sufficient, yet their suffering from the cold was often intense. Mr. Seymour Kellogg, who lived in the Mauvaisterre settlement, in his search for some of his stock, one bitterly cold night, lost his way and saved his life only by walking vigorously'between two trees standing several rods apart. He did not dare to leave this track during the night for fear of being irrecoverably lost. He did not know how far he was from either his own or his brother's cabin. On the appearance of daylight, he found himself about two miles from the latter place, to which he immediately repaired. His feet were badly frozen during the night, making him a cripple for several months. Notwithstanding these hardships, the residents of the county were not discouraged, l)ut went to work in the Spring with renewed vigor. We hear of very large accessions to the population of the county, in 1820, and important strides were made forward. Immigrants poured in from nearly every direction, and almost every township in the county contained one or more families before the close of the year. Among those whom we find recorded as arrivinii' during this year are Jacob Bowman, Martin Bowman, Silas Eldred and Mrs. Ruth Eldred, soutli and west of Carrollton ; John Greene and James Whitlock, near Kane ; John Lorton, Robert Lorton, Thomas Lorton and Isaac Hill, in the northern part of the county: Ransom and Jesse Flatt, near the Illinois River; Zachariah Allen, James Allen, and David Battle, west of Wrightsville ; Isaac Norton, south of White Hall ; Charles Kitchen, Lewis Roberts and Jolm Thompson, near Roodhouse ; David and James Pinkerton, on tlie pranie named after them ; William J. Brown, east of Carrollton ; Benjamin Taylor and Isaac Taylor, on tlie prairie near Rockbridge. ''Old Benny Taylor," as he was called, was the first settler on Taylor's prairie. Soon after liim came Isaac Taylor with his two sons

Passage source: History of Greene County, Illinois : Its Past and Present, Containing a History of the County ; Its Cities, Towns, Etc. ; a Biographical Directory of Its Citizens ; War Record.., 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 Roodhouse Township - 85,575 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.