Pages 9 thru 14

HISTORY OF MACON COUNTY

CHAPTER I

THE LAND OF PROMISE
 

IT'S a beautiful land and most suitable for settlement."  It was Louis Joliet who was speaking, as his birch canoe was paddled up a winding stream in the "Illinois country," and his keen eyes flashed with pleasure at the vista before him, one hot day in July, in the year 1673.  His companion, Father Jacques Marquette, agreed.

LOUIS JOLIET

These two Frenchmen - explorer and missionary - were the first white men known to have traversed the valley of the Illinois river and the land watered by the Sangamon.  They were charmed as they noted the summer beauty of the prairie, gorgeous with flowers; the woodlands and their inviting shade; the quiet but picturesque brooks and creeks.

Through all the years that have passed since they made their report back to their native France, voicing their admiration of the rich country they had seen, men and women have loved this same fair land.  It is the tale of their coming to this valley, the hardships they endured to subdue the land and make homes for their families, their longings and aspirations, their joys, their sorrows, their work, their play, that makes the real story of Illinois, and of Macon county.  Yet civil history, of necessity, must also be told to complete the account.

SANGAMON RIVER SCENE

Louis Joliet and Father  Marquette had been sent from Canada to explore the mighty western river which the Indians called the Mississippi.  They had come up the Illinois river, and, lured on by the Charm of the scenery unfolding before them, had turned off the main river and follows the Sangamon for a distance.

Later explorers in Illinois such as Robert de LaSalle and Father Louis Hennepin, were just as enthusiastic as these first two.  Father Hennepin called the Illinois country the "Delight of America."

ILLINOIS BEFORE 1818

Illinois was a part of the vast territory in this country first claimed by the Spanish, and which they called Florida.  Afterwards it was explored and settled by the French, and then later was taken by the British.  At last it was conquered for Virginia by the successful expedition of the courageous soldier, George Rogers Clark, where he captured Kaskaskia and Vincennes, and became a part of the County of Illinois created by the legislature of Virginia.¹

The County of Illinois included territory now known as the states of Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan.

In 1784 the County of Illinois was ceded by Virginia to the United States.  In 1787 Congress passed an ordinance for the government of the territory, which was then called the Northwest Territory.

In 1800 the Territory of Indiana was organized, including what is now the state of Illinois, and in 1809 the Territory of Illinois came into being.  What is now Wisconsin was a part of that territory.

Ninian Edwards was appointed territorial governor, and the first territorial legislature convened at Kaskaskia in 1812.

In 1818 the present boundary was fixed and Illinois became a state.

MAKING MACON COUNTY

In the course of the various changes that have been made in boundaries of counties the territory that is now Macon county has been a part of the following counties:  Knox, St. Clair, Madison, Edwards, Crawford, Clark, Fayette and Shelby.

At the time that Illinois was admitted to the union as a state, it had a population of about 35,000, the sections settled being on the opposite sides of the state, on the Mississippi on the west and the Ohio and Wabash rivers on the east and south, thus providing connections by water with the outside world.  The river bottom of the

Mississippi and the neighborhood of the U.S. saline in Gallatin county were the most thickly populated places.

THE INDIANS

The interior of the state was uninhabited, except by Indians.  The Kickapoos were still in central Illinois and the Sacs and the Foxes in the territory northwest of the Illinois river^2.

Black Hawk, the great Sac chief, was the last of the Indian leaders to question the domination of the white race in Illinois³.  After his final defeat in 1832, and his removal to Iowa, the north part of the state was ready for settlement by the white race⁴.  The last remaining Indians in central Illinois, the Kickapoos, by this time had removed to Kansas, and eventually went to Texas.

NOT ON IMPORTANT TRAILS

Macon county probably never was the site of an Indian village, nor was it crossed by important Indian trails, yet the Indian wandered over its hills and prairies to hunt game, and up and down the banks of the Sangamon to fish in its waters.  Often spots in this county were chosen for camp grounds, at least one attraction, no doubt, being the fine springs of water.

One of the Indian camping grounds in the county was on the Hockaday farm southwest of Emery.  Many arrow heads were found there in later years.

According to traditions and judging from evidences found, there were also Indian camp grounds at Sulphur Springs near Mt. Zion, at Boiling Springs in Hickory Point township, and at Dantown in Friend's Creek township.

An Indian trail once crossed the Sangamon in Friend's Creek township.  It finally became a public road, but in later years disappeared.  Traces of an Indian trail were found on the Samuel Powers farm northeast of Decatur.

Even after the white man settled in the county, bands of Indians were frequently seen, but usually they caused no trouble.  It is related, however, that in the fall of 1828 a band of Kickapoos, which had camped on Long Creek to hunt, trap and fish, began making depredations on hogs and poultry in settlements in the vicinity.

One band was known to have made threats against the Ward families living south of the river.  John and William Ward, heading a group of men from the neighborhood, among them James Edwards and Joshua Perdue, went after the red men one day, and overtook them on the prairie a short distance east of Mt. Zion.  There were about twelve Indians and their squaws in the party.

Smith Mounce of the Ward party took a gun from one of the Indians, but John Ward told him to return it.  Then Ward gave the Indians orders to move on, and they moved.

That was the last time Indians were seen in any numbers around Decatur.  Sometimes an occasional stray one would be seen, and some of the older residents say that one Indian lived for the rest of his life out in the neighborhood of the Stevens settlement⁵.

PRAIRIES BEAUTIFUL

Picture, if you can, Macon county as it was a hundred years ago.

Writers of that day have left their descriptions of the marvelous beauty of the prairies with us, and to these we must turn for a glimpse of the scene.

The century-ago traveler saw vast stretches of prairie grass, ablaze with blossoms of wild flowers of every hue.  Moses writes:
"The prairies were marvels of beauty.  The marvelous carpet of vendure and flowers in rich profusion and infinite diversity made of the prairies a garden of the Magi."

With the advance of the seasons the scene changed.  After the blue of the violet and the bluebell in the spring came the more vivid blossoms of the summer time, and then came the brilliant fall flowers.

One writer tells that along the edges of sloughs were a species of red phlox which were dazzling.  The wild roses, the black-eyed Susans, the golden-rod, the milkweed, the sunflowers, and asters, the ironweed, and the multitude of other blossoms came and went, making a panorama at all times of flowers which never failed to impress the beholder.  A traveler then could be excused for thinking he was in the Garden of Eden⁶.

And the prairie grass!  Growing sometimes so tall that the little children easily got lost in it!

It was the terrible prairie fires which kept the prairies from becoming forests, and the tall grass was the fuel for these fires.  Reynolds says:
"The fires were grand and terrible as they advanced with a mighty roar, destroying everything above ground."

Yet it was not the beauty of the prairies that attracted the early pioneers who came and settled in Macon county.  They came because they had heard of the agricultural wealth of the land.  They were men who wanted room, and naturally they came to a new country for it.  They were not satisfied with small parcels of ground.

The "rich country of the Sangamon," of which Macon county was a part, was becoming known.  Reports of the fertility of the soil were spread.

It was not to be child's play to blaze the way in a new land.  This was not the place for the idler and the coward, but for the staunch and the brave, for the man accustomed to hardships.

Here were acres upon acres of fertile soil, untouched by the plow, but full of promise for the future.  So the pioneers came.

¹  Three kinds of titles had to be dealt with in the state of Illinois, the old French claims, military rights under the Virginia rule, and head rights under the Act of 1783.  The oldest titles in Macon county were from land grants under the Act of Congress.
²  In Reynolds History is told the story of a white woman, Mrs. James Gilham, Sr., and her children who were stolen from their home in Kentucky and taken to the Kickapoo village in Sangamon county, crossing the future site of Decatur in the journey.  It was in the year 1799.  The Kickapoo town was located on Salt Creek, northeast of Elkhart Grove.
³  J. Anderson Draper said that when he was a small child in Whitmore township he was Black Hawk pass through that section, with several other Indians, on their way to northwest Illinois.  This was only a few months before the Black Hawk war.
⁴  Following his defeat, Black Hawk was taken on a trip through the east, the object being to show him the power of the white man.  On his return to Iowa after that trip he said:  "Rock River was a beautiful country.  I loved my towns, my corn fields and the homes of my people.  I fought for it.  It is now yours.  Keep it as we did."
⁵  Ben Frazee used to say that when he was a child, there was still fear of the Indians in the county.  If the dog began to bark at night Mother Frazee became so frightened that she and the kiddies hid underneath the puncheons of the floor.  Once they did see Indians on Stevens creek.  The Indians were then leaving the county.
⁶  Mrs. Jane M. Johns says in her "Personal Recollections" that shortly after her arrival in Decatur she met a peddler at the Macon house who said that he wanted to bring his old New England father to this country just once, so that he would not be so much taken with surprise when he went to heaven.

<PREVIOUS>   <NEXT>

<CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS>