BIOGRAPHIES
† (Source:
The Good Old
Times in McLean County, Illinois
Written by Dr. E. Duis
Publ: Bloomington: The leader Publishing and Printing House
1874
|
ALBERT YOUNG
PHILLIPS was born April 14, 1812, at Huntsville,
Alabama. His father's name was Glenn Phillips
and his mother's name before her marriage was Leah
McCord. Albert Y. Phillips is of Scotch and Irish
descent. Glenn Phillips was a soldier in the
war of 1812 and fought at the battle of Horse Shoe Bend
under Andrew Jackson against the Creek Indians, and died of
hardship, exposure and want of food.
When Albert Y. Phillips was about fourteen years
of age the family moved to Overton County, Tennessee, and
there Albert resided until the fall of 1830, when he
came to Illinois. He arrived at Twin Grove, in
what is now McLean County, November 8, 1830. He did
very little during the succeeding winter, which was the one
of the deep snow, but kept his toes warm in the house as
well as possible.
In April, 1832, the Phillips family went to
Indian Grove, which is now in Livingston County, but there
alarmed for fear of Indian troubles during the Black Hawk
war, and went to White Oka Grove. The Kickapoo Indians
at Indian Grove were quiet during the Black Hawk war, but
the whites were suspicious and fearful of them. This
anxiety was increased by the freaks of an Indian, named
Turkey, who alarmed the whites by appearing among them
with his face painted a blood red color. But the
Kickapoos were friendly, polite and well behaved. They
conducted themselves as gentlemen should. They
attended church and listened to the preaching. At one
time they listened to the exhortations of a Methodist
preacher, named Walker, whose sermon was interpreted
to them by Peter Cudjoe, who had married an
Indian woman. Mrs. Phillips says she was glad
to have the Indian women come to see her, and thought them
quite good looking. They had regular features and
would have been considered remarkably fine women, if the
copper-colored tan could have been removed from their
cheeks.
In September, 1832, Albert Phillips and his
brother, Calvin Marion, and a man named Andrew
Barnard, moved to Indian Grove to the old Indian town,
which the Kickapoos had abandoned during that fall.
The men started with little to eat, as they expected to be
joined by their families and by others on the following day.
But the families were detained and did not come for a week,
and the three men were obliged to live during that time on
honey and hog potatoes. These potatoes grew wild on
the creek bottoms and along the sloughs. They were
little black things about the size of an egg, and could be
boiled or roasted but had a flavor very different from Irish
potatoes. They were tubers, grew from three to six
inches apart, and had two or three potatoes to a stem.
The deer, which had been killed off during the winter
of the deep snow, became numerous a few years later, and had
a bad habit of eating up the settlers' corn. They
would eat the corn from the cob without tearing off the husk
or breaking down the stalks, and the patch would appear a
fine field of corn, when a deer was killed, it was very
common to tie it to the horse's tail and in this manner have
it dragged home. In the fall of the year the necks of
the bucks became as large as their bodies and very hard and
gristly. Mr. Phillips tells of a man, named
William Popejoy, who fired at the neck of a dear, which
was lying in the grass. The deer jumped up, looked
around and laid down, and Popejoy shot it in the eye
and killed it. He tied it to the tail of his horse,
and brought it home, and when it was dressed, the ball was
cut from the neck, in which it had only penetrated two
inches and was flattened in the gristle. Mr.
Phillips saw this himself.
The following story, which Mr. Phillips tells of
Nicholas Jones is a very remarkable one, but is
confirmed by nearly all the settlers in Money Creek timber.
It seems that Nicholas Jones once shot a deer
in the neck and stunned it. He went up to it, and not
having a butcher knife, neglected to cut its throat, but
tied it to his mare's tail and started home. When he
had gone only a few steps across Money Creek, his mare
stopped and Jones felt a decided jerk. Looking
around, he saw that the buck had come to life and was trying
to gore the mare with its antlers. He whipped his
horse into a run and went home, but could not stop running
for a moment for fear of the deer. He ran his horse
around the wagon, all the time calling to his wife: "Oh,
Jane! fetch the butcher knife, the butcher knife,
Jane, quick, the butcher knife!" At lat the deer's
antlers became tangle in the wagon wheel and it was killed.
Albert Phillips is five feet and ten inches in
height, is rather sparely built, is a very industrious man,
loves humorous stories and is very hospitable and kind.
He married Margaret Moats, February 17, 1850.
She is the daughter of Jacob and Sarah Moats, of
Money Creek timber. They have had no children.
They married late in life, nevertheless their weeded life
has been very happy. But they advise young men and
women to get married early.
† Source: The Good Old
Times in McLean County, Illinois -
Written by Dr. E. Duis -
Publ: Bloomington: The leader Publishing and Printing House -
1874 - Page 640 |
|
ELIJAH PRIEST
was born Sept. 10, 1812, in Muskingum County, Ohio.
His father's name was James Priest, and his mother's
maiden name was Hannah Anderson, James Priest
was a great hunter after deer and bear. On one of his
hunting excursions the old gentleman cornered a bear by the
root of a tree. It began hugging his hunting dog, and
he killed it by striking it on the head with an axe.
The fat on the ribs was nearly four inches thick, the
fattest bear he ever killed.
Elijah Priest worked in the
summer at the business of making charcoal and in the winter
he worked in a furnace for melting ore into pig-iron.
This was, indeed, warm work, some warm, that the sweat ran
down into his shoes and squirted out at every step he took;
indeed, it was so hot, that water was poured on his clothes
to prevent them from catching fire. It was Mr.
Priest's duty to clear out the hole in order to draw the
melted ore from the furnace into the sand-bed to cool into
pig metal. The hole was stopped with clay, and when
the furnace was heated and the iron melted, this clay became
as hard as iron, and had to be drilled out. Mr.
Priest drilled it out while from two to four tons of
melted iron were in the furnace. If he allowed a
particle to fall into the liquid metal, it would boil up and
spit out melted iron, and a piece of clay as large as an egg
would blow up the whole mass of metal. The hands, who
worked at the furnace, wore linen, and persons stood near
and poured water over them. Mr. Priest worked
first in the Mary Ann furnace in Licking County,
Ohio, and next in the town of Zoar, in Tuscarawas
County. The town of Zoar, as well as the furnace, was
owned by a German, named Beimoner. This man provided
for the entire town. He employed men to herd the
cattle, and women to herd the sheep and geese. Mr. Priest
never saw any children in the place.
On the eleventh of Sept., 1833, the day after he became
of age, Mr. Priest married Rebecca Hinthorn,
and in June, 1834, he started for the West. He arrived
at Money Creek timber on the west side, where he now lives,
on the eighth day of July. The journey was a warm and
dry one, and he suffered greatly for want of water and food.
HE ran out of provisions near Big Grove, then called Pin
Hook, now called Urbana. He made many enquiries, and
heard that a certain man had recently two sacks of meal
ground at mill. Mr. Priest whished to buy some, and
sent a little boy, named Henry Moats, to get it.
Henry came back empty-handed, but reported that the
man had a big corn pone on the fire. Mr.
Priest offered to buy some meal, but was refused;
then he stood by the fire, where the pone was cooking, and
Henry immediately opened the door. Priest
was then about to walk off with the pone; but the man of the
house saw that he must give way, and he allowed Priest
a peck of meal. When Mr. Priest arrived at
Money Creek, timber, he would have given all he possessed to
have been back in Ohio; but it was impossible to get away.
He immediately began farming and worked very hard. He
never bought a sack of four after his arrival here, as he
always raised his own. He was a man of great strength,
and made sometimes three hundred rails in one day.
Mr. Priest has done some
hunting, for deer were plenty and easy to kill. He
once found a little fawn as he was out in the timber cutting
a tree. When the tree fell the fawn started from its
hiding place and jumped into Mr. Priest's arms.
It was a pretty, spotted little creature, about two weeks
old, and he took it home, and it became very tame, and ran
all over the neighborhood. It was distinguished from
the wild deer by a tassel around its neck. It was a
doe, and when it grew up, he raised seven deer; but when
game grew scarce, they were all killed by hunters. The
doe was killed by Samuel Ogden, who immediately
informed Priest that it was done by accident.
But the parties, who killed the other seven, were never
discovered.
Mr. Priest came to the West
a poor man in the borrowed wagon, but has been very
industrious, and has succeeded well. Four years ago he
was offered forty-five thousand dollars for his property,
but did not consider it for a moment. His property has
been earned by his strong muscle and his good judgment.
Mrs. Priest died some
years ago, and on the eleventh of September, 1870, Mr.
Priest married Mrs. Minerva McCurdy.
Her maiden name was Minerva Johnson.
Mr. Priest has had seven children, but four died in
infancy, and three are now living. They are:
Sarah Priest, James Saulsbury Priest and George
Washington Priest.
Mr. Priest is about five feet and nine inches in height,
and weighs two hundred and thirty pounds. He is a man
of extraordinary strength, and, in his younger days,
scarcely knew what it was to be tired. He has worked
during his life without the benefit of an education, for an
education would not be obtained where he lived in Ohio.
But in spite of these disadvantages he has been very
successful, and owes nothing to anyone, except good will.
He is a very clever man to anyone who is disposed to deal
fairly and do right with him; but to anyone who is disposed
to cut up shines. Mr. Priest is a very
unpleasant customer. His memory seems remarkably good,
and in conversation he tells of many curious and strange
incidents. He is a man with a very strong
constitution, and his temperate habits have preserved it
unimpaired. With his great strength and good health,
he ought to live to be a centenarian and celebrate one
hundred Fourths of July.
† Source: The Good Old
Times in McLean County, Illinois -
Written by Dr. E. Duis -
Publ: Bloomington: The leader Publishing and Printing House -
1874 - Page 645 |
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