Persifer Township

Persifer Township

J-^ J Cleik of the election. After the jwlls were \, closed it was found that the following-named '* citizens were elected to fill the township offices : George W. Manley, Supervisor; Richard Daniel, Clerk ; James McCord, Assessor; William T. Butt, Collector; Francis Wilson, Caleb Reece and David Cobb, Commissioners of Highways; Rufus \V. Miles and Thomas Pation, Justices of the Peace; Wilson Fierce, Overseer of the Poor ; L. A. Parkins ajid David Russell, Constables.

The township is very liberally watered by numerous streams which meander through it and empty into Spoon River. This river also ventures a little way into the eastern border. The township is quite broken in some parts and pretty well timbered; the southwestern portion, however, is rolling prairie. It, like the four townships cornering on it, Elba, Truro, Victoria and Copley, has no railroad. The Peoria Branch, however, passes within about half a mile of its southwestern corner. R. C. Benson is credited with being the first settler in the township, coming in 1835. He was also the first man to form a matrimonial alliance, taking to his cabin home the only marriageable lady in the township, in the person of Sarah J. Bradford. This wedding was celebrated at the home of the bride's father, Charles Bradford, Jan. 5, 1837. Mr. Benson took his fair bride to his home, which was not unlike most of the dwellings in those pioneer days. He was a great hunter, and upon his unerring aim and good rifle he depended mostly for his subsistence. To this he added a more delicate luxury, the product of the wild bee. In looking for a bee-tree his eyes were as true as when looking along the line of his rifle-barrel after a bounding deer. Adding the above articles, venison and honey, to that of corn-meal, made up the repast during the pleasant days of the honeymoon of Benson and his bride.

The first child born was a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds. The first death was that of Mrs. Elizabeth Bradford. The first sermon preached in the township was by Rev. S. S. Miles, father of Rufus W. Miles. In 1838 a Sabbath-school was organized at the home of Charles Bradford, by this clergyman, atid it is remembered to have been a very interesting one. John Mcintosh taught the first school, in 1841, in a log school-house that was built this year.

The Indians were living about this township when the white people came. They remained for some time, hunting and making baskets and maple sugar. Among these Indians were a squaw and her son. She had, It was reported, accumulated quite an amount of money in gold and silver. Having to leave, with her tribe, and being unable to take all of her money with her, she buried part of it on the banks of Court Creek, in one of her iron kettles. Subsequently she sent her son back for it, but he was unable to find it, and as far as is known it has never been found. Persifer is the home of Hon. Rufus W. Miles, who has held many important township positions, and who has also represented the county for several years in the Legislature. (See biography.) It was Mr. Miles who sent President Lincoln a pen made from the quill of an eagle, with which the martyred President wrote his first inaugural address. Accompanying the quill was a letter to the President which was remarkable for its prophetic character.

There are four churches in the township - the Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church, the building of which was erected in 1863, on section 30, at a cost of about §1,800. Maxey Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church, on section 4, was erected several years ago. The United Brethren have a cliurch on section 34 ; their building is a good one and was erected in 1868 ; this is called the Persifer Chapel. Mound Chapel is located on section 8, and was built in 1872. There are some finely-cultivated faims in this township, and pleasant homes. It has no town within its borders, the nearest market being Knoxville, where most of the people do their trading. The jx^pulation at the last census was 765, and tiiere has been but little gain since. The School Superintendent's report for 1885 gives the following statistics regarding the schools of this township : There are nine school districts, with nine ungraded schools, and all the school-houses were frame. The value of school property was 32,875.25. Of persons under 21 years of age, there were 327, of whom 213 were of school age, 181 being enrolled.

lOTOWNSHIP went into township organization with the others, Aprils, 1 85 3- Samuel Arnold was chosen Moderator, and Larkin V\v\ Robertson, Clerk. There were 104 votes cast, resulting in the election of the following officers : Reuben Heflin, .Supervisor; Paul Hahn, Clerk; Lewis Goff, Assessor; Daniel Robertson, Collector; Samuel Brown, John Gibson and Thomas J. Jones, Highway Commissioners; Larkin Robertson, Justice of the Peace; Josephus Hahn, Overseer of

(the Poor; W. D. Epperson, Constable. The first settler in this township was Joseph Rowe, who came in in the spring of 1830 and made a K^laim on section 33, in the timber. Reese Jones

Iand Joseph Halliday soon joined him, the former entering a claim on section 6, near the county line. Abe Jones, as he was called, came in in 1831, and settled on section 27. In 1832, John Cresswell joined the pioneers, making a claim on the southwest corner of section 27, near the old Indian fort, called Fort Aggie, after Mr. Cresswell's wife. During the Indian troubles, and when there was an Indian "scare," the settlers used to gather into tliis fort for protection. In 183611 was torn down by John Hahn, and the logs used for tiie construction of a barn. John Wooley came in in 1832 and made aclaim. In 1836 the families of Nelson and Lewis Coe were added to the settlement. From that time until 1840 the settlers came in at intervals and made claims in different parts of the township. From 1840 to 187 8 there was a healthy and prosperous emigration to the township, raising the population to some 1,200, since which time there has been a decrease.

The name first suggested for this township was Rio Grande, which are Spanish words, meaning a grand river, and had its suggestion from the Rio

The land in Rio Township is mostly rolling prairie and is very fertile. In the southern part and northeastern corner the land is broken and was originally pretty well timbered. It is liberally watered by Pope Creek, the Middle Henderson and their tributaries. The Rockford, Rock Island & St. Louis Railroad (now the St. Louis Division of the C, B. & Q. R. R.) was completed through the township in the fall of 1870. It enters on section 4, and, describing nearly a circle, passes out on section 19. The township is well-cultivated, and contains many fine farms and farm buildings.

At one time there were four churches in Rio Township - Congregational, Me'hodist Episcopal, Baptist and Protestant Methodist. With the exception of the Methodist, these societies have not been prosperous nor regularly kept up. The population of Rio Township, when the census of 1880 was taken, was 1,126. Since that time there has been a decrease.

There are nine school districts, with nine ungraded schools and nine frame school-iiouses. The school property was valued at $3,600. There is one library, with some 40 volumes. Of persons under 21 years of age there was 442, of whom 298 are of school age, 251 being enrolled.

The township has in it one little village, which is located on the line of the railroad, on the southwest corner cf section i6 and the southeast corner of section 17. It was laid off by William Robinson, Deputy Surveyor of the county, in 187 i, and was named Coburg, after the Coe brothers. Soon after it was platted, there was a public sale of lots. Messrs. Schroder & Owens bought one lot on the southeast corner of section 17, for S125, upon which they erected a building for a store, which was the first opened in town. A post-office was established here in 1 87 I and was called North Prairie. Nelson Coe was the first Postmaster. It was subsequently changed lo Rio, which name the village has since borne. It contains a church, school-house and one store. There are a number of wealthy and prominent gentlemen who live in the vicinity, and thus is it a great convenience to them to have a i»st-office and railway station so near.

Source changes here: from Annals of Knox County : Commemorating Centennial of Admission of Illinois As a State of the Union in 1818, by Knox County (Ill.). Centennial Historical Association, published 1921; 11,033 words in this source stream.

Persifer Township

The name - Persifer - was given to a postoffice which was located at the home of Charles Bradford, who owned the northwest quarter of Section 27 in this township and whose home was located at the southwest corner of his farm. We do not know who chose the name, but it was named in honor of General Persifer Frazier Smith who served in the Mexican war. Morgan Reece told me that people wrote the name they wanted and sent it to Knoxville.

The township was set off as a separate town sometime in the Fall of 1849, and on January 14, 1850, the voters at an election chose the name Persifer for the township. At that time Haw Creek and Persifer were in one precinct and I have heard my father say that the polling place was at the residence of Booker Pickrel which was located at the northwest corner of Section 3 in Haw Creek township. It is now the home of John Spear.

The township is located near the top of the east slope of the ridge which lies between the Illinois and the Mississippi river. As a consequence the general slope is east and south. A bend in Spoon river cuts off about 300 acres on the east side of the township, and this with Court Creek and its tributaries (Middle Creek, North Creek and Sugar Creek) and other small streams, furnish excellent drainage for the township. These streams render the greater part of the land very rough there being only about 3,000 acres of prairie land in the township, making it more of a grazing than a farming region.

Originally at least three-fourths of the township was covered with timber or scattered trees. The land where the scattered trees grew was called barrens, but the word was a misnomer for the barrens is now the home of some of our most progressive and well to do citizens. When the early settlers came nearly all of the timber was large trees. Then as the settlers cut the trees, new trees came up from the seed and now what timber we have is nearly all what is called second growth. Nearly all of this second growth has been cut and killed until we have very little timber left at the present time. The principal timber is the oak of which the white oak is probably the most useful variety. Burr oak comes next in usefulness. Black oak is the most plentiful. There is also red oak, pin oak and jack oak. There are also a few cottonwood, a few elms, a few lynn, a few box alder, a few ash, hickory, black walnut and hard maple. When the early settlers first came to the county there was a white pine grove on Section 25. Some of the trees were more than two feet through at the stump. This grove was soon all cut and used up. Most of it was sawed at the Whitton saw mill which was situated at the Sumner bridge on Spoon river in the northeast corner of Haw Creek township. One house was built from this white pine lumber - that of Captain Taylor of Trenton. This house was the first (or second) frame house built in the township. Excepting this small grove, none of the native timber is of much use as building material except as frame materiel. Very little wood is now used for fuel, nearly everyone uses coal for heating and cooking purposes at the present time. The greatest use of native timber is posts, coal props - of which a great many are shipped from the township - and bridge plank.

There are plentiful deposits of shale in the township that would make excellent brick but as yet there is no factory for making brick and as concrete is beginning to be so extensively used and is such an excellent building material, there probably never will be any brick made from it.

Coal is also found in all parts of the township, but it is not mined to any extent. Three separate veins of coal crop out in the township. The highest vein is in the north part of the town and is 4 feet thick and is of excellent quality. The other veins are but two feet thick and are very hard and make a great many cinders.

The only stone in the township is sandstone, of which there is a small supply. It is soft and does not withstand the climate very well. As there is practically no gravel to use in making concrete, and the other building materials are so scarce, it is readily seen that materials for building is one of our worst drawbacks.

Persifer is well supplied with fertile soil. About onefourth of the land is what is know nas "Marshall Silt Loam" and is what was originally prairie and barrens. All the remainder of the land - except the bottom land - is called "Miami Silt Loam."

In the early days the settlers used springs or shallow wells for water, but year by year the wells had to be made deeper and deeper until at the present time drilled wells from 50 to 300 feet deep furnish the purest and the most abundant supply of water. In the early days people secured soft water by setting buckets, washtubs, or barrels under the eaves of their houses to catch the rain water as it ran from the eaves. Now nearly every house has its cistern for rain water. Cisterns usually hold from 60 to 80 barrels of water and people are seldom out of it.

ply of roughage for stock. The timber also furnished acorns in sufficient quantities to fatten not only deer but all the hogs the early settlers raised. Honey was also plentiful. Mr. R. C. Benson told of one bee tree that he cut from which he filled all the tubs and buckets he had and then stood in honey several inches deep.

Several kinds of fruit and nuts are native to the township. Wild grapes, plums, black-berries, straw-berries, elder-berries, and wild crabs were found, and black walnuts, butternuts, hickory nuts, and hazelnuts were also plentiful. A party of young people once went into Court Creek bottoms near where Appleton now stands and gathered a washtub full of wild strawberries.

Game was plentiful until about 1850. Parts of the elephant and the mastodon have been found in Persifer. A mastodon's tooth was found on North Creek by Albert Wyman and I think it is now in the possession of Fred R. Jelliff, editor of the Republican-Register. The writer also found a part of a mastodon tooth on Section 35. What appears to be an entire tooth of an elephant was found by Luther Webb in Court Creek on Section 22 in 1917. I have often heard my father, R. W. Miles, say that the bones and horns of the bison were plentiful upon the prairies when he came here in 1836. Although these larger animals had disappeared from the country before the settlers came, there remained plenty of deer, a few elk, and numbers of wild turkeys. Prairie chicken, quail, squirrels, the raccoon and rabbits were abundant in those days but most of them have now disappeared. Prairie chickens were so numerous in the early days that Charles Bradford and his son William killed 24 by firing one shot each at a flock sitting on the first grain stacks ever stacked in Persifer. R. W. Miles on several occasions killed as many as 7 prairie chickens at one shot and the writer has seen as many as a thousand in one flock, but they have now almost disappeared from this part of the country.

Indians were doubtless quite numerous at one time but very few were ever seen after the white settlers came and they were doubtless wandering bands. Many of their flint arrow heads and stone axes have been found. The poles of their wigwams which were standing when the settlers came would indicate that there was an Indian village where the town of Dahinda now stands. There are a few mounds in the township, but they may have belonged to a former race. The Indians had no burial place in the township so far as I have ever heard, unless the mounds be such place. What is known as the Galena trail - one branch of it - passed through the township. It ran almost straight north from the south side of the township to Court Creek, crossing that stream where the present Appleton bridge stands. From there it followed a northwesterly direction. A branch trail from the mouth of Court Creek joined it near the northwest corner of the township. The trails were much used by the early settlers as they were veiy good roads, the Indians not having to follow the section lines in the selection of their highways. Mr. W. G. Sargeant says that there were a number of poles of wigwams on the hills on the east side of Sugar Creek and south of what is known as Round Bottom.

One of the Indians who sometimes visited this section during the days of the early settlement was the chief, Shabona. He once offered to show William Morris a silver mine in the northeast part of the township, but Mr. Morris, fearing treachery, would not go with him. Afterwards when returning from a journey of some sort he came acoss a spot that corresponded with that decribed to him by Shabona. But when he went to look for it again he could never find the same place. It may seem strange that Mr. Morris could not find the place again, but I have heard my father say that once when returning from a hunting trip crossing Court Creek bottoms which had been freshly burned over he found quite a large piece of land strewn thickly with human bones, which were so badly burned that they fell in pieces when he tried to pick them up and although he tried to find the place afterwards he could not do so.

William Morris, mentioned above, was probably the first white settler. He bought the N. W. 1-4 Section 26 on March 10, 1832. During the winter of 1832-3 he lodged in a hollow sycamore tree which stood near the south bank of Spoon River just below the mouth of Court Creek. Mr. Morris came from Wilksville, Gallia Co., Ohio. He married Miss Ruth Vaughn, who came frorn Kentucky. Mr. Morris probably built his cabin in 1833, but it is said to have burned down soon after it was built.

Beverly Young and Jesse and Willis Reynolds came to the township in 1833. They came from Munfordsville, Kentucky. Beverly Young settled on the east 1-2 of the northeast of Section 26.

Jesse Reynolds settled on the west 1-2 of the same quarter. Willis Reynolds settled on the west 1-2 of the southwest 1-4 of Section 25. Some time in the fall of 1834 Charles Bradford came from Licking county, Ohio, and bought the Beverly Young place and moved into the house which Mr. Young had built there. The next year, 1835, Mr. Bradford bought the north west 1-4 of Section 27 and moved into a house that stood just across the road west on Section 28. In 1836, Rev. S. S. Miles came to the township from Ohio and bought a part of the northwest 1-4 of Section 34, but did not move onto the place until the spring of 1839, although he lived nearby while he was building his house which, as he was in poor health and his oldest son was but 14 years old, it took him some time to do.

In 1837 many families came to the township, among them being those of Edmond Russell, Isaac Sherman, G. W. Manley, T. D. Butt, Caleb Reece, John Caldwell and James Maxey. After this new arrivals became quite frequent and neighbors were not so far apart.

The first marriage in which the contracting parties were residents of the township, was that of Charles Bradford and Parmelia Ann Richardson. Mr. Bradford was a native of New Hampshire but after his first marriage lived in the state of Maine a short time. He then moved to Licking county, Ohio, and later, in 1834, came to Illinois. Mr. Richardson came from Kentucky. They were married in Peoria some time in the spring of 1836.

The first wedding which occurred in the township was that of Harvey Stetson Bradford, son of Charles Bradford and Hester Whitton. They were married October 24, 1836, at the home of the groom's father who lived on the northwest 1-4 section 27. The Rev. Bartlett, a Baptist minister from Knoxville, performed the ceremony.

It has often been stated that R. C. Benson and Sarah Bradford were the first couple married in the township, but they were not married until JanuaiT 5, 1837. They were married at the home of the bride's father, Chas. Bradford. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. S. S. Miles.

The first child bom in the township is said to have been a daughter to Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Reynolds, but there was a child born to Mr. and Mrs. Willis Reynolds in January, 1835.

The first death was that of Mrs. Charles Bradford, which occurred on January 5, 1835. Mrs. Bradford was in poor health when she came to the township, in 1834, and lived only a few months. She was buried on their own farm almost at the center of of the N. E. 1-4 of Section 26.

The first public cemetery was in Section 9 on what is now known as the Charles Myers farm. The first burial therein was a son of John Henderson, who then owned the farm.

Traveling in those days was not very rapid. In the winter of 1835-6 Rev. S. S. Miles, who lived in Newark, Ohio, was in very poor health. The doctors told him that he would live only until spring came, but as soon as he was able to get onto a horse he began riding out every day and as soon as he could ride 10 miles a day he started for Illinois. He came to the township in June of that year and bought his farm and rode back to Ohio on horseback. When there he loaded his family into a wagon and brought them to Illinois the same fall.

They traveled quite slowly, leading a cow behind the wagon and camping out nights. The milk from the cow was hung up in the wagon in a tin bucket every morning and at night fresh butter was taken from the bucket. Many of the roads were cordoroy, especially in Indiana, and most of the streams had to be forded or ferried. Mr. Miles lived 40 years after coming to Illinois. His death was October 6, 1876.

Charles Bradford brought his family to Illinois in the same way. He brought one two-horse wagon and one sixhorse wagon. His daughter, Mrs. P. C. Benson, told me that the only incident that she could think of in the journey from Ohio was that one of the wagons upset after they had passed all the hills and streams and were only about a mile from the place where they located. Nearly all of the settlers came in wagons, but it is quite likely that a few of them came on foot.

The first mail was carried on horseback, the carrier crossing Spoon River at a place called Jack's ford. This ford was located about 80 rods below the mouth of Court Creek and about the same distance above the township line.

The first public conveyance and one which also carried the mail was the stage-coach. Just when the stage began running through Persifer we do not know, but it seems to have been running in 1837, according to Mr. David Russell, who came to the township that year and was 15 years of age. The first route of the stage was from Trenton west nearly to the R. C. Benson farm, then in a southwesterly direction to the Miles farm, thence nearly on a straight line to Knoxville, passing the G. W. Manley farm, (now owned by Geo. W. Haner), where was a fine spring where people stopped to water. This route missed all the hills between Spoon River and Knoxville. The state road through Trenton and Knoxville was laid out in 1838. T. D. Butt, Caleb Reece and John Coleman were the commissioners.

Bradford, Mr. Bradford being appointed postmaster. We do not know the date when the office started but some place the date as early as 1842. Several years aftervvards the office was moved to Trenton and the name was charged to Trenton.

The first school of which we know was taught by Mary Ann Long in 1839. The school was held in a cabin which stood in the hollow just north of the present Maple Grove School house, District No. 91. This school was not a public school, but was supported by subscription. Mr. C. N. Butt, now living in Knoxville, was a pupil of that school.

The first school house was built in 1841 on the line between the Francis Wilson and the John Caldwell farms. It stood on the north side of the road 1-4 mile west of the center of Section 30. It was a log structure with the door in the south and one row of panes where a log had been sawed out in the east and west of the house for windows. We believe that John Mcintosh was the first teacher and that Curtis Edgerton was the second, but some have said that Mr. Edgerton was the first. So far as we know the pupils who attended the first public school were James and George McPherrin, Neptin, Lucina and Mary Russell, Charles N. Butt, Jacob Brunk, and John C. Hearn.

The first school trustees of Persifer were T. D. Butt and Samuel McCormack. The first meeting was on January 10, 1846, and the first official act was the appointment of Francis Wilson to the office of Secretary and Treasurer.

Another log school house was built in an early day near the town of Trenton, but it was probably not built until after the one on the Wilson farm. This building stood between 80 and 90 rods almost due east of the present Trenton school building.

There are now nine frame school buildings in the township and the schools are all graded. According to the census of June 1st, 1918, there are 207 pupils of school age in the township. The value of the school property in the township is $9,830.00 and the amount of tax levy for last year was $6,325.00.

Persifer boasts the first mill in Knox county. It was built in 1834, by Robert Hendrix. It stood on the south bank of Court Creek at the mouth of Middle Creek - just above where the Knoxville and Victoria road crosses Court Creek on Section 19. At first only corn was ground at this mill, but later wheat was also ground by Samuel McCormack. This mill was afterwards converted into a saw mill and was owned and operated by Andrew Fletcher, Hubbard Huggins, Daniel Anderson and

The next place of importance in the township was the town of Trenton. It was the first town and was laid out in 1839 by Hyram Bowman on Section 25. It contained a tavern and hostelry, a postoffice, 2 stores, a blacksmith shop, a pottery and a brick yard. Charles Bradford kept the postoffice, which was moved from his farm to Trenton. A man by the name of Goodman kept the first store. It was a regular stopping place for the stage as long as that mode of conveyance was in use, which was up to 1853. The name of one of the stage drivers was Dave Brownlee and the name of another was Oliver Pike. Thece men were of the rough and ready sort or they would not have been in such a business at that time. At one time one of these men brought a young lady to Galesburg who was to teach in Knox College. It was a very icy time and when the driver opened the stage door and reached up to help the young lady out his feet went from under him and he went flat on the ground. The young lady, (I forget her name), was so far out of the coach that she could not keep her balance, so she very neatly jumped over the fallen driver and alighted on the curb without any assistance. But the driver was not daunted by the mishap to himself. He turned to a half dozen young men who were standing by and beginning to laugh at him and said: "Boys, there's terrible times over in Knoxville. The niggers are dying off at the rate of six a minute." (There was but one negro in Knox county at the time). Both these men went to California in the gold digging days.

Elliott's Mill, so-called in hpnor of Captain Hiram Elliott, who was captain of Company H, 102 Illinois Infantry, and who owned and operated the mill for several years, was built in 1840 at the mouth of Court Creek on Spoon River. It stood on the south bank of the river at the mouth of the creek and has quite a history. Some time prior to 1840, probably in 1839, Thomas Gilbert who lived south of Knoxville and who was one of the men who sought out the location for Knox College and a man named Captain Jack made a tour of inspection along Spoon River and decided that the spot we have described was the best place for a mill site. As these men did not wish to go partners in the mill and neither wanted to pay the other for what the law gave free to the man who first began to build, both men went home and watched for an opportunity to get the first start. Finally Captain Jack started for Oquawka for two loads of castings for a mill. After his departure Mr. Gilbert heard of it in some way and not to be out-done he engaged all the men that he could get to go with him from Knoxville and they went out to the river and began cutting walnut logs in the creek bottoms just west of the mill site. They worked all night, cutting, hewing and dragging out the logs and when Captain Jack got back with his castings he found that he was beaten. It is said that he hauled the castings down the river a short distance, threw them out of his wagons and never picked them up. Although Mr. Gilbert secured the site for the mill, for some reason he did not build. the mill. He may have sold the site to a man named McKee, for a man named named McKee built the mill. Mr. McKee doubtless began building the mill in 1839 for the frame was up early in the spring of 1840, and it was finished that year. It was a large substantial structure and remained standing 41 years. In the beginning it was a saw mill but it was later converted into a flour mill and was for many years one of the most important milling centers in the county. As the mill grew in importance Trenton declined and one of the stores was moved from Trenton to the mill. For several years there were two stores and a blacksmith shop and at one time there were two saloons in operation. One of them was even named the Blue Goose. The mill was owned first by McKee then by the Lewis boys, (Laderic, Loid, Loren and Luther Lewis), then by a Mr. Stinocker, then by Captain Elliott, then by Proctor Myers, then by Henry Corbin and last by John Degrummond. After about 1870 the water began to fail so badly in the streams that the mill finally had to quit business about 1875. The building finally became unsafe and was torn down by Mr. Degrummond in the spring of 1881.

During the Civil War the Knights of the Golden Circle were quite numerous in the vicinity of the mill and for a long time they met every Saturday night in an old log house that stood on the west side of the road just on the high bank of the creek. The house was one story with a loft and a stone chimney on the outside. Mr. Henry Butt, who told me of the circumstances, was a good sized boy at the time and was staying with the miller. He says that on Saturday evenings when it was getting dark men would begin to ride in on horseback from all directions and tie their horses in the low ground back of the house where they would be entirely out of sight from the road. There were usually about 25 of them and they would gather in the loft of the old house and stay there for quite a long time before they dispersed. Mr. Butt was very anxious to know what they were meeting for and so one night he climbed up the chimney until his head was above the floor of the loft and listened, but although he could hear them talking he could not distinguish anything that they said. The Knights kept up their meetings until the draft was called when some of them in order to escape the draft left the country and the circle was broken up. The Knights of the Golden Circle was a secret organization, originated in the south for the extension and defense of slavery. It contained many men in all the southern states and a great many northern men. In Persifer they went so far as to plot the murder of some of the prominent citizens. The writer's father was the first one whom they planned to execute, but a friend of our family who was a member of the Circle, came to our people and told them, what was planned. As I think of it now I do not know the man's name, I only know that he was an Irishman.

The third and last mill to be built in the township was built by Charles Haptonstall about 1848. It was built on Court Creek, about 80 rods west of the road leading south from the town of Appleton. In it corn and buckwheat were ground at first, but it was later converted into a saw mill and not being very substantial was never a place of much business.

All of the mills and the town of Trenton have long since disappeared as places of public business and there were no other places of that character except a few blacksmith shops until the A. T. & S. F. R. R. was built in 1888. There have been several blacksmith shops in the south half of the township aside from the ones already mentioned. The following are all that the writer remembers: Francis Wilson on his farm on Section 30, Thomas Gordon on the Wm. Morris farm on Section 26, Stephen Clark on what is now known as the Wm. Breece farm on Section 26, and, at a later date, Jas. Kelso, on the hill south of Appleton.

Dahinda was laid out in the summer of 1888 by the Santa Fe Town and Land Co. It stands on the west bank of the Spoon River on the N. W. of Section 24 and is a station on the Santa Fe R. R. There is a Methodist Episcopal church and a Latter Day Saints church, generally known as an offspring of the Mormon church. Guy H. Peters has a store and is postmaster. Charles Woolsey and A. E. Sargeant each have stores and James Kelso has a blacksmith shop. A. E. Sargeant also runs the elevator and E. W. Farquer has a barber shop. The A. T. & S. F. R. R. which traverses the township from west to east with a fine double track has a fine bridge across Spoon River at this place.

Appleton was laid out by the Hon. J. H. Lewis in the spring of 1888, on the S. E. 1-4 of Section 16. It is situated on the north side of the Santa Fe R. R. and is a station on that road. Mr. Wm. A. lies has a store and is postmaster. Alfred E. Saline has a store and a grain elevator. There is also a blacksmith shop and a Church of the United Bhrethren in Christ. Quite a large amount of grain and stock is shipped from Appleton each year.

The first sermon preached in the township so far as we have any record, was at the home of Charles Bradford in June, 1836. The preacher was the Rev. S. S. Miles. He also organized the first Sunday school at the same place in 1838. The first lesson was from the Book of Daniel. The first church was built in 1863 on the Robert Young farm at the center of Section 30. It cost $1,800.00. There are now seven church buildings in the township but two of them are not used. The church on the Young farm is called Bethel and is Methodist. Maxey Chapel stands at the center of Section 5 and is Methodist . One of the churches at Dahinda is Methodist and the other is an offshoot of the Mormon church, called the Latter Day Saints. The church at Appleton is the old United Brethren denomination. The church which stands at the center of Section 8 and the one standing at the southwest corner of Section 27 belong to the revised division of the United Brethren church. The two latter are not in use aet the present time. The U. B. Church at Appleton built a parsonage in 1917. It is the first parsonage in the township.

A great deal might be said about the religion of Persifer people. In the first days of the settlement there were no churches nor school houses and the meetings had to be held for the most part in the homes of the settlers and later when a large bam was built it would sometimes be used for holding meetings. The barn on the Robert Young farm was once used for holding a revival meeting, Mr. Young being himself a great church man. A goodly number were converted at this meeting and some of them became very enthusiastic. One man coming out of the barn after he had joined the church saw his son talking with some other young men out in the yard and you go in and join the meeting? Mother's joined and I've joined and the girls have joined and we've all joined." Possibly the enthusiasm would to a certain extent excuse the profanity.

After the school houses were built they were used almost exclusively for holding religious services until the churches were built. They were the only places of public worship for years. Many people liked the school house the best for church services as it was not the property of any denomination and people felt more at home there.

At one time in the early days a Spiritualist came into the Young neighborhood and gave a few talks and the older people began to be worried on account of the young people, and tried to get the man to leave the community. Instead of leaving, however, he proposed that they get some one to debate the subject with him and leave the question to be settled in that way and Mr. Robert Young took him at his word and tried to find some preacher who would debate with him. But Mr. Young could not find a preacher who w^ould undertake the task and finally a man named Ruff Branscom told him to get R. W. Miles. Mr. Miles said he would debate with him and got Mr, Branscom to pretend that he wanted to join the spiritualists and get some of their books for Mr. Miles to study. The debate was finally called and lasted only an hour and a half when the spiritualist was ready to quit. Mr. Young now said that as Mr. Miles had spent some time in studying up for the debate and had given them such good service it was no more than right that they should take up a collection for him. He then proceeded to take up the collection wearing a very broad smile at the same time. One of the neighbors seeing this smile spoke up and said that if it was a victory, it was not a Methodist victory, at which remark Mr. Young's smile only grew the broader.

Many meetings of great interest have been held in the township and many people have been converted in them and although there have been many backsliders there have also been those who were faithful.

The first land broken was six acres on what is known as the Stevens farm in the S. E. of the N. E. of Section 28. Six acres were also broken on the S. E. of Section 34 at about the same time.

The prairie sod was very tough and hard to plow. The plows were made almost wholly of wood, there being an iron shire and I suppose an iron clevis. Usually the plows were attached to wagon wheels as a man could not manage one of them and they were drawn by oxen, generally two or three yoke to a plow. The sod was often left to rot over winter. One man planted corn on freshly broken sod by using an ax to make the holes and cover the corn.

The first crop did not need tending but after that the weeds were too bad to let go. One man in speaking of this fact said that he trusted to providence to raise a crop one year and got a good crop, so he tried it again and got nothing and he was not going to trust to providence again.

After the sod was rotted the soil could be furrowed out with a shovel plow, and then a man by walking across the fun'ows could drop the corn so that it would be in rows both ways. Sometimes they would cover it with a hoe, sometimes with a plow and sometimes with a harrow.

The first corn planter was made about 1851, but they were not in general use until in the sixties. The first check-rower was a rope but it was soon replaced by the wire as the rope would shrink and stretch too much. The check-row planter came into use about 1875.

The sowing, harvesting and threshing of the small grains has improved as much as the planting of corn. In the early days small grain was all sown by hand. A man would take from 1-2 to 1 1-2 bushels of grain in a sack and carry it across the field, reaching his hand into the sack every second step, taking thence a certain amount of seed and scattering it in front and to one side of him. Finally the hoe drill was invented, which was used mostly for seeding fall grains. Later the broadcast seeder came into use, being used mostly for seeding spring grains. Finally in the end of the nineteenth century the endgate seeder and the disk drill came into use.

The cradle was used for cutting the grain for many years after this country was settled. A man could cut and bind and shock about an acre a day in those days. After the cradle came the dropper, the hand rake reaper, the self rake reaper, the Marsh Harvester, the wire binder and finally the twine binder, which has been without a competitor for almost forty years.

For threshing their grain the earliest settlers were obliged to use the flail. Then they began using horses. A small piece of ground would be smoothed off nicely and some grain would be unbound and scattered on this smooth spot. Then a man, or sometimes two men, would mount a horse and leading 2 or 3 other horses he would go around and around on the grain until the grain was all trampled out of the heads, when they would dismount and cleaning away the straw with forks would gather up the grain and put it in sacks ready for cleaning.

The first threshing machine was called a ground-beater. It was only a cylinder. The grain and straw and chaff all came through onto the ground together and had to be separated by pitch fork and fanning mill. It was run by horse power, the power being made for six horses. Tumbling rods were used. The first threshing was done on what was then the Parkins place, on the hill near the center of the place. The place is the south 1-2 of the S. E. of Section 32. The man who owned and ran the machine was named Pittner and he lived near Canton, Fulton county. Milton Lotts helped thresh.

At the present time the gas tractor is very much talked of and is used to a limited extent, but its place as a mode of power is not yet established.

The tiling of land has been a great improvement to much of the land here. It is quite generally conceded that 4-inch tile is as small as should be used.

Corn is considered the banner crop in this township but wheat has been doing very well for several years, at least it has averaged better than it used to do. A great many fields of wheat made 30 bushels to the acre in 1918. Some fields made better than 40 bushels to the acre. The price of wheat was fixed by the government at $2.26 per bushel for the 1918 crop at Chicago. The farmer got $2.08 at his station.

The country is subject to sudden changes of temperature. The most notable was perhaps in the winter of 1836-7. It was a warm, misty day, with the wind in the south until about 2 o'clock P. M., when the wind suddenly changed to the northwest and the two inches of slush which was on the ground was turned to ice in fifteen minutes. In some instances hogs and cattle were frozen to death standing up. Some people took their horses into their houses to keep them from freezing.

In the winter of 1874-5, one morning in January, the weather was very nice until about 10 o'clock a. m., when it began snowing. Immediately afterward the wind began blowing from the northwest and in one hour the mercury fell 24 degrees.

On June 5, 1844 occurred one of the most destructive storms of wind, rain and hail. The crops were almost totally destroyed. There was no wheat left to cut and my grandfather told me that his corn crop that year was only a ten bushel box full of nubbins in which was only five bushels of corn. The hail stones were as large as goose eggs.

It was a straight wind with rain. The storm was 40 miles wide and was severe enough to blow the roofs off of many buildings and blow some of them down. I do not know what time of the year this storm was but it must have been in the spring as I have never heard that it destroyed any crops.

About the first of August, 1875, a tornado passed through the township from west to east. A two-story house which stood a short distance west of the Flynn school house in Court Creek bottom was picked up and carried two or three rods and dashed into kindling wood. A good deal of other damage was done but fortunately no one was injured, although this was not the case in Knox township.

On the 21st of May, 1918, another tornado started apparently on Section 28 and proceeded in a direction a littk north of east, wrecking buildings and uprooting even the largest trees and passing about V2 mile north of Dahinda. One mar, a Mr. Walker, pump man at the oil pumping station, was killed and the pump house, a concrete building, was completely wrecked. Another man, the name unknown, was blown a distance of ten or fifteen rods and w^as found after the storm pretty badly bruised but not seriously hurt. Very little damage was done to the crops by this storm as it was so early in the season. The farm buildings of Henry Anderson and the dwelling house of Harry Little were very badly wrecked and Mr. Little was himself unconscious during the storm. He showed no marks where any object had struck him and he does not know what rendered him unconscious.

Some winters we have lots of snow and many of the roads are drifted so as to make them impassible. In the spring of 1881 the snow lay on in sheltered places until the first of May.

About 8 years afterwards there seem to have been three frame houses built at about the same time. Edmond Russell built a frame house on his faiTn on section 31 in 1841. It was burned down in 1886. Captain Taylor, who emigrated here from Nova Scotia, built the first frame house in Trenton in 1841. The frame of this house was sawed from native white pine which grew on what was called Pine Bluff about V2 mile north and east of Trenton. (The logs were said to have been sawed at the Whitton mill at what is now known as the Sumner bridge in the northeast corner of Haw Creek township.) The third frame house and the first house to be painted white was built on the Bethel corner at the center of Section 30. It was built by a Mr. Davenport for his daughter, whose name was Easley.

James M. Maxey built the first brick house in 1851, making his own brick. The first brick building was a smoke house built by T. D. Butt. The Stevens house has stood the longest of any brick house in the township. It has stood about 60 years. The brick for it were burned on the Biggerstaff place just across the road from where Henry Wesner lives. Sam Conaway burned the brick for this house.

Some great improvements have been made in the furnishings of the dwellings. The fireplace has given place to the range and the furnace, the washboard to the power washer, tallow candle to the incandescent electric light in a great many cases, the needle to the sewing machine, the melodeon to the piano and the talking machine, the straw bed on the floor to the spring bed and mattress, the husk rug to the Brussels, the Axminster or the Wilton rug, the home-made lounge to the hammock and the costly couch and davenport, the old fashioned chair to expensive elegance but not to comfort.

The writer is not posted on early amusements, but he has heard his people tell of some of the things they did in the early days. There were the quilting bees, the shooting matches, the debating societies, the singing schools, the Fourth of Julys, the com huskings and the wool washings. As I have never seen the wool washing described I will try to do so. The young people would be invited to a home to spend the evening. Several tubs would be secured and in these would be placed wool and water. Then the young people (young men and women) would gather around a tub, as many as could conveniently do so, remove their shoes and stockings, put them into the tub and work them up and down until the wool was thoroughly scoured. The washed wool would then be removed and fresh wool put in its place and the performance would go on until the wool was all washed or until it was time to go home.

Horse racing on the road was also one of the incidentals of the day. In the early days the wagon boxes were put together with pins and could be easily taken apart and sometimes when the wagon was being driven very rapidly the pins would bounce out and let the box come to pieces of its own accord. One man who had been to Peoria and was coming home with his groceries in the wagon box got into a race with some other people who were coming in the same direction. The race began somewhere east of the Spoon River and lasted until Trenton was reached. When this man stopped he had neither groceries nor wagon box, both having been lost on the way and he was sitting on the coupling pole of his wagon. He

Before the township was organized, G. W. Manley was Justice of the Peace. The first election was held April 5, 1853, at the White school house, now known as the Union or District No. 90. The following officers were elected :

G. W. Manley, Supervisor; Richard Daniel, Clerk; James McCord, Assessor ; Williams T. Butt, Collector ; Wilson Fearce, Overseer of the Poor ; Francis Wilison, Caleb Reece and David Cobb, Commissioners of Highways ; Thomas Patton and R. W. .Miles, Justices ; L. A. Parkins and David Russell, Constables. G. W. Manley was moderator and Richard Daniel, clerk of the meeting.

The writer does not know when the custom began but when he was a boy the elections were held at the Union school house one year and the next at the Wyman school house.

About 1892 or 1893, Mr. E. J. Steffen offered his caiT)enter shop in the town of Appleton for election purposes and it was used until the Town Hall was built in 1895. Mr. E. J. Steffen built the hall for the township at a cost of $540.00, The elections have always been held at the hall ever since that time.

At the time of Lincoln's second election feeling ran very high in this part of the country, and it was not considered safe to count the ballots at the school house so they were brought to my father's home for counting. Abram Rambo, James Dossett, William Patton and my father, R. W. Miles, sat around the dining table with big navy revolvers lying handy and counted the ballots. Mr. Patton, being a long ways from home, did not go home that night, but Mr. Rambo went home on horseback and said he was going to carry his revolver cocked all the way. Mr. Dossett went home on foot across the fields. He also carried a revolver and he was one of the kind that would have shot first and made inquiries afterwards if any one had tried to molest him on that trip. We can hardly imagine that such times have ever existed in this peaceful country.

The following men have been Supervisor of the township : G. W. Manley, R. W. Miles, James M. Maxey, John Biggerstaff , James Dossett, R. C. Benson, E. J. Wyman, J. R. Young, W. H. Montgomery, J. J. Patton and Geo. A. Gibson. R. W. Miles and J. R. Young each held the office for about 20 years, Mr. Young holding it for 20 years continuously without opposition. Mr. Miles was for many years chairman of the board.

ly tested in caring for the Liberty loans and the Red Cross and other war work organizations, but he has responded loyally and royally to the calls.

The present township officers are: Geo. A. Gibson, Supervisor; Leonard Harmison, Town Clerk; E. W. Farquer, Assessor; Roy Stevens, Commissioner of Highways; E. J. Steffen and W. H. Montgomery, Justices; Roy W. Manley, Constable, Arthur Berry having recently resigned from the office of Constable; Arthur Berry, Bert Wagher and C. W. Harmison, Trustees of Schools and J. W. Miles, Township Treasurer.

So far as we have been able to learn there is no one living in the township now who has lived here continuously since 1850. Mr. G. W. Sargeant came to the township with his parents in 1845 and settled on the north 1-2 of the northeast 1-4 of Section 14. The Sargeants have always owned this farm since then but have not always lived there, although they have never lived very far away. Henry Butt, W. H. Montgomeiy and Jacob Lorance each came to the township in the early fifties.

So far as we know Mr. W. G. Sargeant and Dr. J. R. Bedford are the only old soldiers of the Civil War who are living in the township at this time.

The people of Persifer are mostly prosperous and happy. They are situated on the main line of the A. T. & S. F. R. R., having a direct route to the Chicago market for their produce. They have good homes and are pretty well fixed as to this world's goods. Nearly all have some kind of a motor vehicle and some of them have two or three of them. They always went over to top when it came to Liberty loans and Red Cross and all other forms of war work and they also furnished their full quota of men to face the German bullets.

J. W. Miles

Joseph Rowe is acknowledged as the first man to settle in Rio township. He built some sort of a house, the first one a white man put up in the township, but his future is lost to the history of Rio.

Some squatters made temporary light camp stops in the early 20's at Rio, and a family that had built a cabin on the slope of Pope Creek near where the State Aid Road now crosses had their house burn in the late thirties while they were at the fort at the Snodgrass house near Henderson on the Mc-' Murtry farm.

John McMurtry, whose daughter was the first white woman to be buried in Rio, came from Kentucky by way of Indiana to Section 33 in 1829. He served as a soldier in the Black Hawk War. His descendants occupy a large space of farming land near North Henderson; the Piatts of Galesburg, together with the Heflins of Rio, are among those now living.

In 1833 Reece, Sam and James Jones likewise came from Kentucky. Both Kentucky families brought good oxen and horse teams with them and also drove in good loose animals of all kinds. Reece Jones permanently settled in a home, defended it from the Indians, and when they burned one cabin he built another better than before. He educated his family in the best schools of that day within his reach, and they moved socially in the best circles in the state. The Jones family built the first school house in Rio township, aided by the sulDscriptions of other settlers in labor and money. A Miss Jones was the first teacher.

In the early thirties Erasmus Hall settled on Pope Creek, where he operated a saw mill. Noted Indians called at his home and the trader Le Claire was. an acquaintance of his. Hall's Ford was on the trail from Peoria to Rock Island as was also Bruner's cabin near the southeast part of the township.

Bennet Fleharty came to Section 6 just west of the Jones family in 1834. He afterwards kept a store on his farm where Fred Anderson now lives.

Geo. Simms settled about the same time as Fleharty on Section 6 in Rio, and Section 1 in North Henderson township, Mercer county, building his house, which consisted of one large room, with one end of it in Rio, Knox county, and the other in Mercer county. At dances held here it was not uncommon to have the music in one county and the dancing in the other. When marriages were solemnized in this house, care was taken to have the bride and groom stand well over in the county that issued the license. Mr. Simms gave public addresses to the older people on the subject of slaveru, outlining the history of the Rebellion in advance, and made quite good guesses concerning the result.

Joseph Hahn came from Pennsylvania in 1835 and settled in Section 33 on a farm extending from the south line of the township to the center, much of the way one mile wide. It sloped gently to the south and was a most excellent farm with good drainage, fine soil, good timber and was close to the store of Goff, the Baptist church, and the second school house built in the township. All of these public buildings Hahn assisted . in building and maintaining. He had served in the War of 1812 and was well fitted to engage in pioneer enterprises.

About this same time Mr. Westfall came to Section 6. The year 1835 also marks the advent of several other Rio pioneers. Pedro Epperson and his brother, Edly, settled on the section south of Westfall. Their brother-in-law, the father of Dr. John N. Cox, came in the fall of that year, but soon moved to some very good farm land near Old Oxford, where he spent the greater portion of his life. During the Civil War he was given a commission by Governor Yates. Pedro Epperson, a man of great energy, soon had good buildings and fences. Immediately after locating he made a large rail crib like a house and was able to entertain his sister and her family royally. While the Jones and McMurtry families were forward in school building, the Simms and Epperson families did their share in maintaining same. Pedro Epperson and his descendants are reputed to have owned at times a strip of six sections a mile wide across the township.

Geo. W. Weir built a flat-boat and floated down the Mississippi River to New Boston in 1835, where he chopped wood for the original Drury of that place. In the winter of that year being in need of bacon he walked to the home of the original Jones family in Rio township. On his return trip with the bacon on his back, the wolves bothered him considerably. As a result of this trip to Rio he hired to Sam Jones for $3.00 a month and stayed two or three years. As part of his pay he took a pair of steers and some wheat, putting the latter in a rail pen chinked with straw. Two or three years later he drove the steers to Milan and traded the wheat for log chains. He also acquired another breaking team of oxen. Mr. Weir lived to be over ninety years of age.

In 1835 Isaac M. Wetmore came to Rio with John Wycoff on horse-back by way of Chicago where he partly bargained for 160 acres of land. Later he relinquished it for more tillable land on the Rio and Ontario line. Dearborn St. is on the Chicago land which he contemplated buying or is a boundaiy of it. Mr. Wetmore ran a store in Rio on the slope south of the Washington school house and afterward established a very fine farm on both sides of the township line with extra fine buildings on the Ontario side of the line.

In 1835 Michael Bruner drove a pair of oxen from Breckenridge county, Kentucky, to Rio, bringing his wife and young family. Later Mrs. Bruner died. In 1839 he drove a pair of oxen to the same place in Kentucky and brought a second wife, his father, Adam Bruner, and his uncle, Peter Bruner, with him to Rio. Both the elder Bruners had spent long years preaching the gospel. They with their two brothers had served in the Revolutionary War and all four were later buried in a cemetery on the Bruner farm. Knox county now owns this site and has erected a monument to their memory. The Bruner farm in 1850 had a licensed tavern upon it and possessed unusual buildings for that day. It was on the trail from Peoria to Rock Island and during the Civil War fruit from its fine orchard sold for $50 per tree on the stem.

About this time Michael Loveridge, an English educated veterinary, settled about one mile west of Joseph Hahn. He was a useful and highly respected man in this community, preaching the plain truth of the gospel in a fearless manner during the forties and up to 1862, when he moved to Oregon. Hahn, Loveridge, the Deatherages and Lewis Goff built the second school house in the township, also a Baptist church which, with the store of Goff 's, made the south central part of the township quite a public settlement.

Soon the Woodman's, the Larkin Robertson family, the two Coe's, Lewis and Nelson, with Benjamin Harvey and Luther Fitch, settled more centrally in Rio township.

John D. Bartlett and family came in 1842. Wm. Dailey, James Hinchliff, Philip Prior and David Woodman built near the center, with Wm. Barnard a little farther north.

The first period when the very early settlers came was a ranch life. Cattle and hogs ran loose on the open prairie. The small grain fields were fenced. A law of "common field" prevailed ; everybody gathered his corn and the cattle were turned on the fenced section to feed at will. Later, as the farms were cultivated, the law caused the stock to be taken from the highways and no open prairie grass was left. The cows that the early settlers brought were good stock. The Kentucky settlers later brought fine beef sires.

He was wont to stop at the nearest house for dinner or lodging and was always welcome. He brought the news of his locality and they told him of their affairs so that he was a medium of intelligence at his next stopping place. The amusements were dances, foot races, ball games, horse races, military training etc. There were no more capable men at caring for their affairs than the first settlers. They met every emergency. They fed, clothed, nursed and buried their neighbors with their own hands. A common bond bound the various settlements together. The pioneers in the forties lived in substantial log houses. About all the money they could spare was for door latches and "trimming salt," which was scarce. Health failed without it, and expeditions were planned to get it.

Many interesting things could be related concerning the early pioneers. A. J. Streeter herded some cattle in the central part of Rio township and watered them at the Collins spring. Later he was nominated for President of the United States on the National ticket. Quite a number of his planks came to be beams and stringers in suggesting improvement of the present national policy.

Frank Hickley and Peter McCartner, Jr., also herded cattle and drove them to the same spring. The former one day walked into a railroad auction sale, bid off an entire railroad, and paid cash for it. The latter after quitting the cattle indusdustry engraved some fine greenbacks which the United States treasury afterward unwittingly accepted as genuine.

In the early fifties Robson Bros, establish a cash corn market of large proportions. It gave an outlet for more corn and made it easier for the settlers to pay for land. During the years when Rio had no railroad facilities this cash market contributed greatly to the community's prosperity.

Before the Township Organization Act, citizens of Rio and Ontario voted in Ontario. Later Rio Settlement was a part of the political unit of Ontario. Squire Mosher of Ontario was territorial judge while the two were one unit. Reuben Heflin, Samuel Brown, John Robson, Samuel May, John Wycoff, Robert Deatherage and James Deatherage have all voted in the territory^ of Ontario.

In 1870 the Rockford, Rock Island & St. Louis Railroad came to the east township of Mercer county on the way to Rock Island with no charter to enter Knox county. Pope Creek is a deep stream and tributaries run northwest in east Mercer county. Rio township had a better crossing. In Knox county, it was then lawful to vote aids to railroads. The convention to frame a new state constitution was in session. The railroad wanted aid to build a right-of-way without condemnation. It was expected the new constitution would forbid voting aid to railroads. The town was nearly evenly divided before voting aid but the affirmative gained during the canvassing and Rio bought its share of the improvements. This resulted in locating the road from Monmouth to Rio and on to Rock Island, and later the connecting line from Galesburg to Rio was built, giving the township plenty of transportation. In getting the right-of-way near Pope Creek the full value of the land for the entire farm was paid to the owner and only one hundred feet wide was taken.

Some of the more or less prominent men about this time include the following: S. W. May, who invented and defended his invention in court of the May windmill, now owned and manufactured by his niece, Miss Duwaine Phymister, of Chicago, at her factory in Galesburg; Robson Eros., William, John and Robert, who handled most of the fat cattle raised just before and during the Civil War from Rio and New Boston ; Chas. Bryant, kinsman of the noted poet by that name, and himself a writer of poetry ; F. A. Landon, Sr:, adept in verbal squibs ; David B. Woodman, the largest man in Knox county, who ran fifty yards in record time, beating a sprinting stranger who bantered him.

No less interested in the progress of the community and active in all forward-looking enterprises was Heber Gillis, who, with his brother, Theodore, came to Rio township on Christmas, 1856. Their father, Dr. Geo. Gillis, followed them in the fall of 1859.

Benjamin Harvey was a pioneer thresher, going as far as Rock Island in a fall and winter run. The grain was torn from the straw. Men pitched it away and later separated the grain from the chaff and cockle burrs with fanning mills. Some boys left home for California after turning the mill one season.

Samuel Brown , Harrison Shannon, Reuben Heflin and Thomas Jones were among the early officers of the township, both as supervisors and as justices of the peace. Robert Deatherage, Gilbert Wetmore, Benjamin Harvey, James Mansfield and F. M. Epperson have been justices of the peace for long terms. B. E. Frankenberger now occupies that position also.

The Black Hawk War, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish War, and now the most uncalled for slaughter of men ever known - all have called for many of our best men and women, in some cases whole families responding.

often too long during wet seasons. The ground often baked before it could be cultivated. Tile drains are now used freely and little trouble is experienced from the extremes of wet and dry. Large sums of money are buried out of sight in tile, but they are permanent improvements, being just as good as when laid forty years ago. Progressive farmers still think that a larger outlet would prevent a cold, slow growth of com as in 1917. Hog disease has been conquered largely. Tuberculosis cattle are being weeded out. Horses are larger and better for farming. Roads are better. The man power is much greater than fifty years ago. Many plows have passed the experimental stage. One man handles twice as many horses as then. Planters approach perfection ; binders work like clocks. Grain separators are wonders as compared with those of years ago. Much money has been spent in improving stock and grain, and the results are plain to be seen.

Rio township is the home of some fine thoroughbred stock, especially cattle. That one herd of Shorthorns was selected with intelligent care is revealed by the fact that they are descendants of tribes originated and bred by such famed Aberdeenshire breeders as Cuickshank, Duthie, Campbell and Lord Lovat and the present generation is the product of sires and dams of America's best. Four are daughters of the great sire Lord Avondale, a bull which sold for five thousand dollars at auction in 1916 and is now conceded to be one of the most successful of the breed. Others are by Sultan Goods of the "Sultan" tribe. Challenge Victor, the Dutchman, a grandson of the St. Louis World's Fair champion, Choice Goods, White Gloster by Fair Acres Sultan, Baron Kerr H, Lucky Pride H, a grandgrandson of The Lad for Me, Glen View, Dale HI, by the famous sire, Avondale. Revealing as this does unusual strength of blood through the sires, many of the dams too are equally attractive and have a record as producers that stands high ; for instance, the cow Lucky Clari produced a bull that was purchased by Francisco Maissa for shipment to the Argentine and a calf from Verbena Lass has found a home in the herd owned by Dr. Rabey, Gatesville, Texas. Two well bred bulls, Bud Avondale, by Lord Avondale; and Challenge Victor, by Challenge Mysie, are samples of the high-bred stock to be found in Rio township. Illinois is richer because of this select collection of the breed for the reason that permanent agriculture and soil improvement go hand in hand with live stock production.

The schools of Rio township are of the district grade. There are two churches in the community, the Methodist and Congregational, Rev. Glen A. Rowles being the resident pastor of the latter.

Rio has a railroad junction with unusually good train service, a fine bank building, and other improvements. In 1917 the road tax amounted to $19,000. Three hundred and eighty-two autos assist transportation. The township as a whole is prosperous and progressive in every Way.