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FROM its beginning until the year 1854 when
the railroads came, Macon county struggled with the transportation
problem. Life in those days meant going without things, unless
they could be raised on one's own ground. Money was scarce,
and markets were so far away as to make it difficult to deliver
anything one might produce to sell. For years people fretted
because of the barriers with which they were surrounded. The only
hope seemed to be transportation by water. For years the talk
went on about making the Sangamon a navigable river. The
legislature had once declared the Sangamon a navigable river but
that didn't make it one. One time a steamboat did get up the
river as far as Springfield, but it had a great deal of difficulty
in turning around there. When experiments were made to send
flatboats down the river from here, people lined the banks of the
river to watch the boats, and to go to the rescue if help seemed
necessary. One time in 1845 a flatboat was built and went down the
river in charge of Captain William Rea. The next year
the firm of Peddecord. Armstrong and Prather
undertook to send five boats with hogs and corn to New Orleans.
The boats made the trip as far as Long Point, south of Niantic,
without much trouble, but had to stop there for the winter, awaiting
high water in the spring to finish the journey. When spring came
three of the boats were outfitted and started on the trip south.
One stopped at Natchez, and the other two went on to New Orleans.
John Hanks, J. Y. Braden and Hosea Armstrong
captained these boats at the start. At Beardstown, however,
Armstrong turned his command over to Moses Spencer. At the
time these boats had left Henry Prather had gone up and down
the river making speeches, in which he urged the people to help
remove obstructions from the river, so boats could get through.
The people responded well. For days they worked. While the
trip made by these boats was successful in a way, the difficulties
had been too great to make the project a profitable one. It
was little consolation to spend so much effort and tie and work, and
make no profit from them. It seemed as if the difficulties in
the way of navigating the Sangamon successfully were too much to be
overcome, and people gave up the ideal. All schemes for railroads
had failed. Now it seemed that water connection with the
outside world had to be given up. Macon county residents
feared that they would always be isolated. Naturally with no
railroads or water routes, highway travel increased.
Everything brought from outside was hauled in. Emigrants were
passing through in large numbers to the west. But roads
remained just as had as they were before. Though they
increased in number, they did not improve in quality.1 There
was no system of maintaining or improving the highways.
Establishment of stage lines helped a little, but the stages did not
become popular because of the difficulty of plowing through mud.2
Too often the passengers had to help pry the coach out of the mire.
MAIL SERVICE Air mail wasn't known in the early days of Macon
county, but it should have been, for that was the time when only air
routes could have provided adequate mail service. Had the
pioneer expected mail every few hours in the day, as modern folks
do, he would have been sadly out of luck. However, lack of
mail service did not worry him at all, for if he got a letter once a
year from "back home" he was happy. Letters were not so numerous
in those days. One good reason was that it cost too much to
send them. When postage was 25 cents and cash scarce, one
could not expect to write or receive such luxuries as letters very
often. Postage was paid at destination rather than sending
point, and often a letter would lie unclaimed for weeks because the
person to whom it was addressed was unable to round up the necessary
two bits to pay the postage. Before Decatur had a postoffice,
settlers had to go to Springfield for their mail. Afterwards
mail came once a week from Shelbyville. Perhaps it would be
better to say the mail pouch would come, for often there was not a
single piece of mail in it. Gradually mail routes became more
numerous, and after a time Decatur was connected with Springfield,
Covington, Ind., Bloomington, Charleston, Ewington, Paris and
Edwardsville. By 1851 Decatur was receiving mail from these
towns every week, and sometimes two or three times a week. The
mail service could not have been called fast - except when the
wolves chased the carriers. Then sometimes it was ahead of
time! Silas Packard, who carried mail between Decatur and
Paris and between Decatur and Bloomington in 1847 and 1848 often
used to tell of his experiences on those trips. He was
considerably more of a "rural" carrier in those days than the rural
carrier of today. In the lonesome journey between here and
Paris, nearly seventy miles, there were not a half dozen houses.
On the route to Bloomington the first house after leaving Decatur
was at Salt Creek. Then came the tiny village of Clinton.
But between Clinton and Bloomington there was not a house! His
horse and the wild deer were his only company. Young Packard
thought things were just coming his way when, once in a while, in
real good weather, employer, Landy Harrell, allowed him to
use his open buggy for the trip. Most of his journeying was
done on horseback. Harrell had the mail contract from
the government, and employed Packard, then a youth of about
18, to carry the mail. He was paid fifty cents a day.
And he saved money on the job! Two days were required to make the
trip from Decatur to Paris. Usually the carrier stayed two
days in Paris, then made the return trip, making six days for the
round trip. Often he did not have one piece of mail in the
pouch when he left Decatur. After states were put in operation
on the mail routes, the mail was carried by stage, but often it was
necessary to go back to the horseback route, for a horse could get
through many times when a stage would get stuck in the mud. On the
trip to Paris it was necessary to cross the Okaw river twice.
When the routes were laid out, the government inspector placed marks
on the river bank at the fords, as a guide to the carrier as to
whether or not he should attempt to cross the river. If the
water had risen to the mark on the tree the carrier was not
obligated to go on. He could return home and he would be given
credit for having made the entire trip. If the water was that
high, the carrier would have been compelled to swim his horse to get
across, and a carrier was not expected to do that.
STAGE STANDS Macon county had "filling stations" years ago, but
they were for man and beast, rather than automobile. They were
the stage stands, where the stage made regular stops to change
horses, to eat and, if stop were made at night, to secure lodging
for passengers, drivers and horses. Weather conditions had some
effect on the stops made at the stage stands. If the weather
were fair, roads good, and change of horses made occasionally at
stands along the way, one could make the trip to Springfield in one
day. If roads were bad, it took two days or more to get
through. Sometimes a "box on two wheels" was substituted for
the heavy stage, in bad weather. The state driver was a man of
privileges. He was given the entire road when he made his
appearance. That was even required by law. To the small
by the stage driver was a hero; a man who could tell wonderful tales
of the things he had seen in his travels! Every lad tried to
imitate that peculiar swing and crack of the whip which only the
stage driver could muster. It was something worth while to be
on hand when the stage rolled in, pulled by its four perspiring
steeds, over which the driver flourished his long whip. The stage
usually had seats for six people. Passengers were not always
as enthusiastic about the stage as the small boys were. Often
they had to walk a good part of their way. Paying their fare
and then walking, or helping to pull the coach out of mud, wasn't
anything funny to them. No wonder they looked forward to the
time when a better means from transportation would be provided.
Stage owners didn't profit much and often lost money. Changes
in ownership became frequent.3 Leonard Ashton, who ran
a stage between Decatur and Springfield, used to brag that his stage
was "never more than a week behind schedule, even in the worst
weather." He probably meant it as a joke, but his statement
was not far from the truth. In wet weather stages were delayed
for days. It was impossible to keep to schedules. Among the
stage stands near Decatur was one built by Christopher Miller
on the north side of what is now Route 10, about four miles west of
Decatur. The house, made of logs, was built broadside to
the road. There were two rooms on the ground floor, with
double chimney between, and a fireplace in each. Above was the
loft. Guests for the night in the loft often woke up in the
morning in the winter time to find themselves under a neat little
snow drift. Miller had come to Macon county from Grayson
county, Ky., in 1829. His grandson Abraham C. Miller, in
after years often used to tell how it was one of the treats of his
boyhood days to go to Grandpap's when the stage was due.
---------------------------- 1 The
story has been told before as to how the Bloomington road was
located, but it is worth repeating. The first road which had
come into Decatur from the north had swung to the west near Emery,
passing the Indian camp ground on the west side of the Hockaday
farm. The home of the Hockadays was at the east side of
the land. They wanted a road past their house. The
Hockadays heard that a circus was coming to Decatur from the north.
So B. B. Hockaday went to Maroa to meet it.
"Do you want the shortest and best way to Decatur?"
he asked the circus leader.
"Of course," answered the show man.
"Then follow me," said Hockaday
The circus followed Hockaday, who led the way directly south,
following a straight line into Decatur. By the time all the
circus wagons had passed over the route a road had been made.
Thus was established the road now known as State Route No. 2.
2 John Kaylor tells of an incident he remembers,
showing the difficulty of transporting things over mud roads.
One time on a trip to Springfield he met an outfit moving an immense
boiler, 24 feet long and 6 feet in diameter. To draw the truck
100 steers had been yoked together in pairs. The mud was so
deep that at some places the wheels would sink until the axles were
almost out of sight. The crew in charge numbered seven.
The leather whips carried by the bullwhackers were ten feet long,
attached to an ox-goad and finished off with a "cracker" of
buckskin. When this whip was swung by an expert, the sound
equalled that of a rifle shot.
3 In 1853 Jesse H. Elliott, proprietor of the Macon
house, was advertising that he was prepared to run semi-weekly hacks
between Paris and Decatur, one to leave each place every Tuesday and
Friday at 6 a.m. and arrive at the opposite point Wednesday and
Saturday at 6 p.m. This line connected with a daily line from
Terre Haute to Paris and a tri-weekly line from Decatur to
Springfield.
"The best drivers will be employed," says the ad, "the fare will be
moderate and the entire distance will be run in daylight.
Every necessity and appropriate accommodation for the comfort of
passengers will be provided.
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