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ORGANIZATION
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perity, wealth and commanding influence. We
arrogate to ourselves nothing but what justly belongs to us, but if
it were possible to blot our State from existence, the shock would
affect the commercial world from center to circumference.
ITS SETTLEMENT
The first house erected
within the present limits of Macon county was the "trading house,"
about eight miles north-east of Decatur, on premises belong to
Wm. C. Johns, Esq., which was a log structure, built by
Lortons for the purpose of trading with the Indians. A
thriving business was carried on by these men until 1825 or '6, when
the Indians ceased to visit this part of the country, except in very
small companies. Prior to that, from 200 to 500 Indians would
sometimes be camped in the vicinity at once. The men were
principally engaged in hunting, and would bring the Lortons
whatever furs or other article they had for exchange, and purchase
powder, whisky, blankets, etc. The trading house was erected
about the year 1816. The Lortons were from St. Joe.,
Michigan, and returned to that place when the Indians left this part
of Illinois. The second house erected in the present limits of
Macon county was built by William Downing, near the present
residence of Capt. D. L. Allin, on the south side of the
Sangamon river. This was in fact the first residence, for the
one built by Lortons was not intended as a permanent
residence, but only for the purpose of trafficking with the Indians
so long as they remained in the vicinity. Downing is
said to have come into this vicinity for the purpose of trapping and
gathering honey. He left the neighborhood of Vandalia in the
spring of 1820, and built the cabin sometime in the fall of that
year. Downing remained here but a short time, and sold
his 'improvements" to John Ward, upon the latter's arrival in
this vicinity. He then removed to Bond county, Illinois, where
he lived a great many years. It is regretted that a more
extended sketch of Downing cannot be given in this
connection, but he was here but a few years, and there is, perhaps,
but one man now living in the county who was here any portion of the
time that Downing was; and it being over half a century
since, he remembers but little of the old trapper and bee hunter.
The next house built was by Buel Stevens, in
1822, near what is now known as Stevens' creek, about three
miles northwest of
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Decatur. This became the nucleus of what was
afterwards known as the Stevens' Settlement, which, with the
Ward Settlement, on the south side of the river, where the only
settlements within the present line of Macon county until about the
year 1828, when people began to come into the county, and settle
both up and down the river.
For an account of the early settlements made within
what was then Macon, but which now constitutes Piatt county, we make
the following extracts from a historical sketch of the latter
county, read at Monticello on the Fourth of July, 1876, prepared
committee consisting of William H. Piatt, Ezra Marquis and C. D.
Moore, old and respected citizens of that county:
"Settlements commenced as early as 1823 - over half a
century ago. The first known settler in the territory
comprising Piatt county was George Hayworth, a Quaker from
Tennessee, who, in 1823, located on a piece of land included in the
present city limits of Monticello, and built the first cabin.
This historic structure is still standing in Monticello, and is used
for a stable. He was joined during the same year by a Mr.
Daggett, who erected a cabin on a spot just north of Monticello,
where N. E. Rhodes' barn now stands. On the following
March, 1824, Abraham Haneline, of Green county, Ohio, moved
here with his sons, including Nathan, who is the oldest
resident now living in the county. They located in the
Sangamon timber, about four mile northeast of Monticello, at Coon's
Spring. About the same time James and John Martin, from
Virginia, built on Furnes' run, about a mile above the
spring. The next year brought another settler by the name of
York, who stopped near the mouth of Goose Creek. In
1828 James A. Piatt, Sen.* formerly of Ohio,
but later of Indianapolis, Indiana, purchased the claim of
Hayworth, and in April, 1829, moved upon the claim with his
family. In the autumn of the same year, Jeremiah Terry
settled on what is now the Piatt county fair grounds. In 1831,
Peter Souders of Lee
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county, Virginia, moved his family to the northeast
part of the county, in the Sangamon timber. Settlers now began to
increase more rapidly, but the rich, rolling prairie, with all its
fertility and beauty, seem to have few charms as a dwelling place
for these early settlers. Instead, they invariably selected
some spot in the timber for their abiding place, and it was not long
before the first settlers had neighbors in all the belts of timber
that line the banks of the Sangamon, Okaw, Camp Creek, Goose Creek,
Willow Branch and Madden's Run. Among the early settlers that
followed close upon the heels of those already mentioned, were
Abraham and Ezra Marquiss, of Ohio; George Widick, a
Mr. Dillow, James Chambers of Kentucky; John Madden,
John Argo, William Wright, Peter Croninger, I. V. Williams, Joseph
Mallory, George Boyer, Samuel and Jacob Cline, Thomas Welch, John
Bailey, George Evans, A. Rizor, Samuel
Surver, John Hughes, A. J. Wiley, Luther and Joe Moore, William
Monroe, Simon Shonkwiler, Daniel Stickel, and others.
We are also permitted to make the following extract
from the history of DeWitt county, by Mr. W. L. Glessner, of
Clinton, which was prepared for the Fourth of July celebration of
the present year, and published in the Clinton Register of
the 7th of July, 1876. It will be remembered that
the portions of DeWitt county
referred to, constituted a part of Macon until 1839, so that all the
settlements referred to were made in what was then Macon county,
and are interesting as a part of the Macon county history:
"The first settlers of DeWitt county, as near as I have
been able to ascertain, were a party consisting of six persons:
Zion Shugart, Edom Shugart, their mother, Elisha Butler
and his wife, and John Coppenbarger, of whom the only living
member is Edom Shugart, who now resides at Marysville,
Nebraska. This party arrived in what is now section seven
Tunbridge township (on what is known as the Emily Hayes farm),
on the 29th day of October, 1824. They put up a hastily
constructed log cabin, and made ready for the winter. During
the winter of 1824, Nathan Vestal, with a large family, moved
in and settled a short distance from the Shugarts, and in the
following spring John Coppenbarger removed his family into
the neighborhood, and thus was commenced the settlement of that
portion of the territory of Illinois now known as DeWitt county.
During the winter of 1824 a
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little girl of Nathan Vestal's died, and was
buried on the hill near Emily Hayes' residence. As
there was no lumber in the country a coffin was made by splitting
slabs out of trees and hewing them into shape. The nearest
settlement to the Shugarts', at that time, was the residence
of a man named Laughery, ten miles down Salt Creek, in what
is now Logan county.
"Another settlement was made in what was called Fork
Prairie, in the vicinity of the present town of Marion, in 1831 and
'32, the first settlers being Thomas R. Davis, James Morris, John
Morris, Benjamin Lisenby, Alexander Dale, Josian Harp, Charles
McCord and Hugh Davenport.
"The first settlement about Clinton was made by
Joseph (or Josiah) Clion, in 1830. He erected a
cabin on what is now known as Paschal Mills farm, about one
mile west of Clinton."
There were also early
settlements made in what was then this county, but which now forms a
part of Moultrie, as early as 1829 and '30.
It is worthy of remark that the first who came here, as
a general thing, commenced their improvements in the timber.
But few for a great many years, thought it advisable to attempt
farming in the prairie. They at first were not satisfied that
crops could be successfully cultivated there. It was almost
the unanimous opinion that the large prairies never would be in a
state of cultivation, but useful only for grazing purposes.
Another obstacle was in the way for a good many years, and
that was, there were no plows suitable for breaking the prairie
land. The sod was very much tougher then than it was in after
years when the stock had pastured the prairies and killed out the
grass to some extent. It would be astonishing to many of our
present residents to see the immense crops of prairie grass that in
the early days grew upon their present fields. It grew in
places to the height of from six to twelve feet, and was "almost as
thick," some of the old settlers say, "as the hair on a dog's back."
It was these immense crops of grass that furnished the fuel for the
terrible fires that swept over the prairies during the fall season
of the year, and were so often productive of loss of life and
property. And then, again, there was so much of the prairie
land that was considered too wet to be ever suitable for
cultivation. Thousands of acres that now constitute some of
the best farms, in the highest state of cultivation, and possessing
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very richest of soil, were condemned as swamp lands.
The fact is that there is much of the land of Macon county that is
now considered high and dry, or at least sufficiently so for all
practical farming purposes, that was so wet that during a greater
portion of the year it was absolutely dangerous to ride over it on
horseback, for fear of miring. There was another drawback in
the settlement
MORE TO COME LATER..........
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and fixed beginning and an ending, coming on each
day, or each alternate day, with the regularity that was surprising.
And after the shake, then came the fever, and this "last estate was
worse than the first." It was a burning hot fever, and one
that lasted for hours. When you had the chill you couldn't get
war, and when you had the fever you couldn't get cool. It was
awkward in this respect. It was, indeed. It would not
stop, either, for any sort of contingency. Not even a wedding
in the family would stop it. It was imperative and exacting.
When the appointed hour came around, everything else had to be
stopped to attend to its demands. It didn't have any Sundays
or holidays. After the fever went down, you didn't still feel
much better. You felt as though you had gone through some sort
of a collision, and came out not killed, but badly demoralized.
You felt week, as though you had run too far after something, and
then didn't catch it. You felt languid, stupid and sore, and
was down in the mouth and heel and partially raveled out, so to
speak. Your back was out of fix, and your appetite was in a
worse fix than that. Your eyes had more white in them than
usual, and altogether, you felt poor, disconsolate and sad.
You didn't think much of yourself, and didn't believe other people
did either. Your didn't care whether there was any school or
not. You didn't think much of suicide, but at the same time
you almostmade up your mind that under certain circumstances it was
justifiable. You imagined that even the dogs looked at you
with a kind of self-complacency. You thought the sun had a
kind of sickly shine about it. About this time you came to the
conclusion that you would not take the whole State of Illinois as a
gift, and picked up Hannah and the baby and your traps, and went
back "yander" to Injeany, Ohio, or old Kaintuck.
The above is no picture of the imagination. It
occurred in hundreds of cases. It put us in bad repute with
our neighbors, and for that reason they refused to some and settle
with us. Whole families would sometimes be sick at once, and
not one member scarcely able to wait on the others. And when
the emigrant happened to stop in a neighborhood affected with this
disease, he did not stay long.
Persons emigrating to the county usually selected their
locations and commenced their improvements on government land, and
waited until they were able to amass from the scanty resources
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enough to purchase the forty or eighty acres - as
the case might be - at the sales at the land office at Vandalia.
In the earlier days the government price of land was fixed at $1.25
per acre. Amusing incidents are related in connection with the
races that were sometimes made by different persons desiring to
enter the same piece of land. It was not unfrequent that men
who had about exhausted their means in reaching the country, and had
labored hard and undergone all sorts of privations in securing a
comfortable home and other necessary improvements, and had, perhaps,
a few acres of ground in cultivation - when they had at last
obtained, by the strictest economy, or perhaps borrowed enough
money, to purchase from the government their little forty-acre home,
found that some speculator had preceded them and entered their land.
It is said, however, that in some instances the speculator did not
retain the improvements; for, by some magical power or otherwise, in
a remarkable short space of time almost the identical improvements
appeared at some other locality not far away, and having the same
occupants.
The first piece of land ever entered in Macon county
was the west half of the northeast quarter of section thirty-one, in
township sixteen north, range two east of the third principal
meridian, on the ninth day of November, 1827, by Lewis B. Ward.
This was owned by Mr. Ward until the fall of 1876, when it
was sold to Bartley G. Henry. There were about eight
hundred acres of land entered during that year, and there is now
probably not an acre of land in the county belonging to the
government.
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