THE OLD SETTLERS, WHERE THEY WERE FROM, TOGETHER WITH MANY INTERESTING FACTS CONCERNING THEM --- ISAAC HARRIS, MRS. GOODWIN, COL. SAMUEL LEECH, GEORGE MERRITT, "JACKY" JONES, GEORGE MCCOWN, AND MANY OTHERS --- RANGERS --- JOE BOLTINGHOUSE'S AVENGERS --- WAYNE COUNTY ORGANIZED MARCH 26, 1819, ETC.
THE "simple annals" of the brave and hardy pioneers who came to this portion of Illinois to carve out new homes for themselves, and fight it out with the bloody savages, the wild beasts and the deadly malaria, dates back only seventy years, the allotted span of extreme human life, and the fleeting years are fast carrying away all living testimony of the earliest settlers, and unless we now catch the shadow ere the substance wholly fades, and tell the story of the most interesting people the country has produced, it will soon be forgotten, and the world will thus lose a lesson that is worth more if fully told than any heritage that we can possess. To gather up the threads of thier eventful lives --- mostly broken threads now --- is both a labor of love, and already a difficult task in many respects. The pleasure consists in listening to the story of the very few now left of those early comers, all of whom are venerable men and women now, and who were infants then, and the difficulty consists in the fact that no person is now alive who was then old enough to know and see and remember for themselves. Thus we are driven to their recollections of the tales that were told to them, and to those traditions that have here and there been preserved from the fathers.
Next in interest to the story of the lives of these pioneers is the study of their characters. Man's nature is such that he is deeply interested in the movements, purposes, great actions, heroic deeds, sublime sacrifices, the loves, the sports and pastimes of those who have gone begore him. Whether his forefathers were wise or foolish, great and strong, or puerile and weak, he wants to learn all he can about them. How they thought and what they did -acts and doings that, disconnected from their story, might not only seem idle but foolish, are clothed with immense interests when they are told of those we love and respect --- those whose lives were a long sacrifice which have produced the ripened fruits we now enjoy; and while even one or two are yet living who were here and participated to some extent in the stirring long ago, the task, so far as they can go in memory, is both easy and pleasant, but in a moment, and before we have had time to reflect upon the loss, they are all gone, and the places that knew them so well will know them no more forever. Hence the chronicler, who puts in a permanent form all these once supposed trifling details, has performed an invaluable, if not an imperishable service. For the proper study of mankind is man. It is the great and inexhaustible fountain of knowledge, and the "man" that is or should be best studied is your own immediate forefathers or predecessors. To know them well is to master all you can really learn of the human family. To peer into the complex problem of the human race does not so much consist in trying to study all of the living and the dead, as in mastering, in so far as it is possible, the chosen few.
Gov. Reynolds gives this quaint account of himself and the early pioneers: "All species of amusements were indulged in by the original inhabitants of Illinois. I do not pretend to say that every person was devoted to gaming; but it was considered at that day both fashionable and honorable to game for money; but, as gentlemen, for amusement and high and chivalrous sports. In this manner a great many gambled. Card playing was sustained by the highest classes as well as the lowest in the country. A person who could not or would not play at cards was scarcely fit for genteel society. The French delighted much in this amusement, which gave the card parties much standing and popularity with the Americans. The French at that time had the ascendency in the country, and their manners and habits gave tone and character to many such transactions. The French masses in early times played cards incessantly in the shade of the galleries of their houses in the hot summer months. They frequently played without betting, but at times wagered heavily. Card playing was mostly the only gaming the French indulged in. The ladies of that day amused themselves often in these games, and as they do at this day. At times the Americans, as well as the French, bet heavily at cards, although they were not considered gamblers. * * Shooting matches, with the Americans, were great sport. Almost every Saturday in the summer, a beef or some other article would be shot for in the rural districts, and the beef killed and parceled out the same night. A keg of whisky was generally packed to the shooting match on horseback. Sometimes a violin appeared, and stag dances, as they were termed, occupied the crowd for hours
"In 1804, I witnessed a match of shooting in the orchard of Gen. Edgar, a short distance west of Kaskaskia. It was a match between John Smith and Thomas Stublefield, and the bet was $100. Smith won the wager. A small tricky game for whisky was often played in these keg groceries, which was called 'finger in danger.' Every one that pleased, put his finger down in a ring, and then some knowing one counted the fingers until they counted some number agreed on, and the finger at that number when it was touched was withdrawn, and so on until the last finger in the ring was left, and then it had to pay the treat.
"Aged matrons frequently attended these shooting matches with a neat, clean keg of metheglin to sell. This drink is made of honey and water, with the proper fermentation. It is pleasant to drink, and has no power in it to intoxicate. The old lady often had her sewing or knitting with her, and would frequently relate horrid stories of the Tories in the Revolution in North Carolina, as well as to sell her drink.
"In the early days of Illinois, horse-racing was a kind of mania with almost all people, and almost all indulged in it, either by being spectators, or engaged in them. The level and beautiful prairies seemed to persuade this class of amusement.
The earliest settlement in this portion of Illinois it appears was made by Michael Sprinkle, the first white man to settle in Shawneetown. He was a gunsmith, and the Indians had petitioned Gov. Harrison for permission for him to reside among them to repair their guns, and he fixed his residence there in the year 1802. Other people were attracted to the locality, mostly on account of its convenience to the Salines, and in 1805 an unprovoked murder was committed by the Indians in the killing of Mr. Duff near the Island Ripples in the Saline Creek, and he was buried near the old salt spring. It was supposed the Indians were hired to commit this murder. Shawneetown was occupied by a village of the Shawnee Indians for many ages, and it was the place where Maj. Croghan, the English officer, camped in his explorations of the country in 1765. He had a battle at this place with the savages. The old salt spring is situated about twelve miles northwest of shawneetown, and around it a colony commenced to settle about the year 1805. In 1803, Gov. Harrison had purchased of the Indians the salt works and adjoining lands, and the same year the Saline was leased by Capt. Bell, of Lexington, Ky., and this attracted the attention of immigrants.
The attention of the early pioneers who had settled along the Lower Wabash and Ohio Rivers was attracted to this portion of Illinois by some of them passing over what is now Wayne County as rangers --- those heroic men who went out and braved the savage, and, at the risk of their lives, protected the helpless and scattered families that had ventured out in the solitary wilds and commenced to build permanent homes.
The first settler in Wayne County was Isaac Harris, and until three months ago, when she died, his daughter, Mrs. Betsey Goodwin was not only the oldest living inhabitant in the county, but the first. She came here with her father's family in 1814, she being then ten years old. Her death, in September, 1883, severed the last link connecting the present with the first settlement in the county. Her father, Isaac Harris, left his Kentucky home with a few provisions and cooking utensils packed on horses, and followed a dim Indian trail to the territory now comprised in Wayne County --- then a perfect wilderness. Mr. Harris was the first white man to settle and build a house in our county. The site chosen was a high bluff at the edge of the Wabash bottoms, nine miles southeast of Fairfield. A large spring at the foot of the bluff was doubtless an attraction. Thomas Harris, ex-Supervisor of Leech Township, now lives on the exact site of the first building erected in Wayne County. This first cabin had a dirt floor and its size is shown by Mrs. Goodwin's statement as to the carpet used. Four bear skins, cut square, filled the cabin and made a luxurious carpet. The daily food of the pioneers was corn meal, hominy, bear meat, venison, honey and sassafras tea. The meal and hominy were ground in a mortar made out of a stump, a wooden maul attached to a spring pole being the pestle. The breadstuff for each day was pounded up before breakfast. Mrs. Goodwin thinks she has ground over a hundred bushels of corn in this way. The grist was sieved and the finer portion called meal, the coarser hominy. These mortars were used for three years. Bear meat was plentiful, Mr. Harris killing four or five a week. Venison was not a rarity in a household where the head of the family has been known to kill nineteen deer before breakfast as Mr. Harris did. But this was doubtless an unusually good morning for deer. Mr. Harris' method of bringing home honey when out on a hunt was decidedly aboriginal. When he found a bee-tree, he would kill a deer, take off the skin in a way best suited to the use he had for it, fill the skin with honey, tie up the holes made by the legs and neck, throw it across his horse and make his way homeward. Honey was so abundant that great wooden troughs were provided for it.
Mrs. Goodwin stated to her friends only a short time before her death, that she remembered many times of seeing a hundred gallons of honeyed sweetness in a rude wooden trough. When a surplus of honey had been gathered, it was hauled on a sled to Carmi and sold for 25 cents a gallon. The pioneers' luscious bill of fare was served on pewter plates, sometimes accompanied by milk poured from a gourd, and which had been strained through a gourd strainer.Bears were so bold that have been known to come within twenty steps of the house and carry off pigs. Their skins were made very useful. Mrs. Goodwin said she had made at least 500 pairs of bear skin moccasins, and could do the work as well as an Indian. They were made with the hair on (turned inside), and for men, cut about as high as socks; for women, about the length of stockings. Mrs. Goodwin said she would enjoy wearing a pair even in 1880.
>The young ladies of the pioneer period wore deer skin dresses. The hair was removed, and the skin dressed so as to be soft and pliable, and when colored red and yellow made rather a stylish looking suit. The number of "breadths in the skirt" were about as few as in the tight fitting, figure-displaying costumes of the super-fashionable belles of the present day. The men wore leather breeches and jackets.
In 1880, Mrs. Goodwin related to the editor of the Wayne County Press her recollections of her first calico dress. She said: "Daddy loaded a lot of deer skins and venison hams on a sled, and took 'em to Carmi and bought us gals each a calico dress. We thought they were powerful nice, and that was nice." The barter was at these prices: A pair of venison hams 25 cents, and calico 30 or 40 cents a yard. A few years later, shoes and stockings also became fashionable, but they were too highly valued for wearing even a whole Sunday. The girls would carry them tied up in their handkerchiefs until near the church or farmhouse where church was held. They would then take a seat on a log, don their shoes and stockings, and go into the house with as much of a dressed-up feeling as a city belle alights from her carriage to enter the opera. Plainness of dress was the rule for girls, and wearing of "ruffles and bobs" to church was not generally allowed.
At the earliest day of Mrs. Goodwin's recollection, the Indians seem not to have had any permanent village in our county, but were frequently camped here in large numbers. Mrs. Goodwin remembered seeing about 300 camped near Nathan Atteberry's present home. Once she was so badly frightened by unexpectedly coming upon an Indian, that she ran a mile and a half at full speed, arriving home almost dead. Her father "gathered a parcel of men, and moved 'em out." Mrs. Goodwin attended the first Fourth of July celebration ever held in Wayne County sixty-seven years ago. Fairfield then consisted of two cabins, and the patriotic observers of the day we celebrate numbered about thirty persons, prominent among whom were the Barnhills, Slocumbs, Leeches and Jo Campbell. It was, Mrs. Goodwin said, "a sort of pay celebration." The refreshments consisted mainly of a roasted pig and blackberry pies --- regular "turnovers" --- baked in a skillet. Sam Leech was the orator of the day. Mrs. Goodwin remembers that our fellow-citizen, J. W. Barnhill, was one of the patriotic pioneers. He was two years old, barefooted and wore a home-made cotton dress.
Isaac Harris, the first settler, loved to joke. Dick Lock one day wanted some corn fodder (blades). Isaac told him to bring his wagon and get it. Lock, however, took a rope with him, intending to carry a bundle only. As he started off, Harris touch a chunk of fire to the load. While Lock was wondering how he fodder happened to burn up so suddenly, Harris told him to go get his wagon and come for it like a white man. Mr. Harris had a pleasant way of dealing with speculators who came into the country to buy large tracts of land. He was sought as a guide and would invariably take the Eastern fellows through some of the most radically swamp land that could be found, and skip the good portions. On more than one occasion he purposely got lost, and compelled the land buyers to sleep a night in the woods, and go supperless to bed.
Isaac and Gilham Harris (brothers), with their families, had spent the winters of 1812 - 13 in a camp, near where Nathan Atteberry's farm now is, bringing their hogs from their home in Big Prairie, White County, on account of the superior mast of that locality. And in 1814, as stated above, the families moved into the county as permanent settlers. Aunt Betsey Goodwin was then twelve years old, and from an interview with the old lady in 1880 by the editor of the Press, we extract the following interesting reminiscences: Her father, Isaac Harris, built the first cabin ever erected within the borders of Wayne. Mrs. Goodwin was twelve years of age then, and has a very distinct remembrance of that first low hut, with its dirt floor, carpeted with bear skins (and it took only four bears to supply the carpet). Mrs. Goodwin is seventy-seven years old, and promises fair to live out the century. Her mother lived to be ninety-one, her grandmother to be one hundred and seven, making a visit to Ireland after her one hundredth year.
Mrs. Goodwin yet thinks that the corn meal she ground or pounded in a stump mortar was better than that made by the steam mills of to-day. It was sifted through a home-made seive made by stretching a deer skin, tanned with ashes, over a hoop. The holes in the sieve were made with a small iron instrument heated hot. The smaller the iron the finer the meal. That portion of the grist which went through the seive was called meal --- that which remained was used as hominy. As civilization advanced, homemade horse-hair seives came in fashion. Aunt Betsey remembers seeing Granny Hooper weave lots of 'em. The dishes and spoons used were almost wholly of pewter and were sold by peddlers. There were no stores in the county, and men and women both wore buckskin clothing made of deer skins, dressed with deer's brains, and colored yellow with hickory bark and alum or red with sassafras. Three ordinary deer skins made a dress. Leather whangs or homespun flax thread was used in making them. No frills, ruffles or diagonal pleaatings were allowed.
Clad in a short, red leather dress, and wearing a sunbonnet made of homemade cotton or flax, our hostess, then Miss Betsey Harris, must have been an attractive young lady when at the age of fourteen, and "wild as a deer," she struck the fancy and won the affections of Tom Jones, a stout young pioneer in leather breaches and a coonskin cap. But the tender feeling was not reciprocated. Young Jones tried to make headway in his suit by presenting Miss Harris with a pair of side combs. She wouldn't take them, and Jones tried a flank movement by giving the combs to her little brother. But she never would wear them.
While on this subject, we will state that many of the pioneers made their own combs. An old case knife was converted into a saw, and with this rude tool combs of everlasting quality were made from cow's horn. Mrs. Goodwin's mother wore such a comb of Wayne County manufacture for thirty-two years, and was buried with it in her hair. At a later period, Andrew Wright came from New Jersey, settled three miles south of Fairfield, and added to the scanty revenues of his farm by making wooden combs with saws especially made for that purpose.
Mrs. Goodwin's first fine bonnet was bought of J. G. Barkley forty-two years ago, when he kept store in the north room of Mrs. E. Trousdale's residence in Fairfield. This bonnet was a palmetto, and was much larger than the shaker hoods which were worn a dozen or more years ago.
About this time those enormons tortoise shell tuck combs were in fashion --- immense semi-circles, twelve inches in length, and with teeth four inches long. They were about as large as the bonnets of to-day.
In those days, Uncle Charley Wood kept hotel in a log building just north of the Lang Hotel. Hon. I. S. Warmoth made saddles and harness in the present residence of A. R. Swan, near Thomas L. Cooper's residence.
Caleb Williams and R. B. Slocumb were among the pioneer merchants. After they "broke up" no store existed in Fairfield for a year or more, and Mrs. Goodwin was compelled to send to Carmi for a set of cups and saucers. A little later, Page came with a stock of goods, and the pioneer did not have to go thirty miles to make little household purchases.
Tallow candles, made by dipping, were first used for illumination. when the iron lamp was introduced, with its hook to hang on a nail and its sharp point to stick in the cracks in the logs, it was deemed a great invention. When filled with "coon" or bears oil it made a splendid light. Candles were also sometimes made from beeswax.
The first school which Mrs. Goodwin attended was taught by Uncle George Meritt. There was not an arithmetic or slate in the school room, the studies being confined to the Testament and spelling-book. And Mrs. Goodwin added, "George was counted a big scholar in them days."
Archy Roberts (grandfather of N. E. Roberts) was one of the first preachers in this part of the State. He was a Methodist as were most of the early ministers.
As to weddings in the early times, Mrs. Goodwin said she didn't have much of a wedding when she was married to Steven Merritt --- her first husband. "Daddy cut up powerful about it --- thought nobody was good enough for his gals, and we run off and got married." Mr. Harris soon afterward became reconciled to the match, and gave the bride money enough to buy a full set of pewter dishes.
Mrs. Goodwin is a very large woman, and has been remarkably stout, well fitting her for the trials and hardships of a frontier life. R. B. Slocumb, many of our readers will remember as a large man, yet Mrs. Goodwin one day won a bushel of salt from Mr. Slocumb by outweighing him, tipping the scales at 190 pounds.
Steven Merrit came to Fairfield one Saturday and won $10 in a horse-pulling match. He bought a hat for himself, a calico dress for his wife, and expended the balance of the money, $3 in coffee. He got a meal sack full, as coffee then sold eighteen or twenty pounds to the dollar. Mrs. Merritt had never made a cup of coffee, having alwyas used milk and sassafras tea, and this big lot of coffee was kept lying in the loft of the cabin untouched for a year or more until a Kentucky cousin visited the family and explained to Mrs. Merritt the mysteries of making coffee.
Mrs. Goodwin never seemed to learn to appreciate much of the modern luxuries. Even the spring seat in a two-horse wagon is an effeminate invention for which she had no use. She preferred to take her seat on a quilt or a pile of straw in the bottom of the wagon. And this sort of conveyance she thought more comfortable than a buggy.
The commercial poverty of the country in its first settlement is shown by the fact that the smokers made their own clay pipes when they became too aristocratic to use a corn cob. Such a thing as a cigar was unheard of.
What would the ladies of to-day think of a bedstead with only one post? On first thought they will say such an article of furniture is an impossibility. Not so, if the headstead is built in one corner of the room, and holes bored in the logs for the insertion of the poles which constitute the one side and one foot rail needed. Such were the original Illinois bedsteads.
Shoe blacking is a modern fashionable folly which was unknown in the days when venison hams sold for 50 cents per pair and wild honey was stored away by the bushels in large wooden troughs. When Uncle Ephraim Friend, lately deceased, was being married to his second wife, he felt the necessity of putting on a little extra style. In this respect he did not differ from the widowers of 1883. Shoe blacking was not to be had, and he inverted the oven used for baking corn bread and the soot on the bottom thereof was made to do service on his wedding boots.
Window glass was unknown in the early cabins. A hole in the wall was left for light, but this was scarcely necessary, when we consider the pioneer's love for open doors, even in extreme winter weather.
T. T. Bonham brought the first buggy to Wayne County. It was a stylish affair, imported from Pennsylvania. E. Bonham, when a young man "cut a splurge" by driving in this buggy to camp meeting. The civilization represented by the Eastern buggy was in great contrast with that of which Mr. B's dinner was a type. He was a guest at a farmhouse where the principal dish was baked 'possum. Mr. Bonham would have preferred friend oysters.
The first show Pomp Scott ever attended was in Albion. He went on horseback, but not being the owner of a saddle, a bed quilt was used as a substitute. On this, with his gal behind him, he rode to the show, had a bully time, and thought himself as much of a bigbug as any aristocrat present.
One day, Mrs. Goodwin and Sally Moffitt wished to visit the family of Alexander Campbell, Sr., the father of Sheriff Campbell. They had on the farm a gentle steer which the boys had been in the habit of riding. The ladies thought that a ride on this steer would be better than walking. It was a rainy day, and they took with them an umbrella which had been left at the house by some land hunters. After getting fairly started, they stretched the umbrella, when the steer started off like mad. Both were thrown off, and the land speculator's umbrella broken all to smash.
Soon after the first settlement of the county, when peace existed between the Indians and settlers, Joe Boltinghouse was killed by Indians, while he was herding hogs on the heavy mast near Massillon. He was shot, scalped, and thrown in the fire of his camp so that his hands were burned off. His family were advised that something was wrong by his faithful dog "Beve" coming home alone. When the friends went to the camp, they found him scalped and mutilated, his horse stolen and the Indians gone. Three years after this, a party of seven Indians came to the same place and camped for a few weeks hunting. Among their ponies Joe Boltinghouse's horse was seen and recognized by one of the pioneers. The news was carried to his family, and a party organized to investigate. Joe Boltinghouse's father, his brother Dan and Isaac Harris visited the camp. By strategy they obtained the guns of all the Indians but one. This warrior, an immense savage, was last to surrender his gun, and as soon as he did so ran and swam across the river. As he climbed the opposite bank he was seized by the half-wolf dog "Beve," dragged into the water and drowned. What became of the other six Indians the three revengeful pioneers would never tell. It was suspected that all were killed and thrown in the river. The stolen horse was reclaimed by the Boltinghouse family, and the ponies posted as estrays. Mrs. Goodwin says there "was a powerful stir in the neighborhood" about the matter, but no close inquiry was ever made as to what became of the Indians.
In 1816, came George Merritt, with his father, Ephraim Merritt, and settled near the Harrises, and also John Jones (preacher "Jacky" Jones), in company with his father, Cadwalader Jones, and settled in what is now Leech Township, on the east side near the county line. George Merritt, in answer to the question, when he came to Wayne County, replied: "Well, sir, I got here on the 3d day of August, 1816, half an hour by sun." There's exactness for you. Uncle George said he "helped raise the fourth house that was built in this fork"--- that is the country between the Skillet Fork and Little Wabash. He said that in 1817 a vote was held as to whether Illinois should be a Slave or Free State. The territory now comprising Wayne County was at that time a portion of Edwards County. Mr. Merritt's first going to mill was to New Haven, below Carmi. The settlers here had no corn, but borrowed of Toliver Simpson, then living at Concord, White County, four miles below the Big Prairie. A year or two later, Mr. Simpson moved to Wayne, and by that time our pioneers had small pieces under cultivation and were able to return the borrowed breadstuff Uncle George took two horses when he went to mill, putting three bushels of corn on one and two bushels on the one he rode. The Skillet Fork was crossed in a log canoe. The corn was taken over first, and he then went back for the horses, making them swim beside the canoe. In 1816, only three small patches of ground were in cultivation in Wayne County. The first settlers preferred the timber to the prairie, on account of the toughness of the sod of the latter, requiring, Uncle George said, three yoke of cattle to break it. The first corn-fields were greatly annoyed by "varmints," and every farmer had a pack of hounds to keep the coon from destroying the corn. Uncle George said that the third winter he spent here his brother Steven killed seventeen bears. Venison hams were then as staple a product of the county as wheat is now. And the price was uniformly "two bits a saddle." Uncle George has hauled many a load to Shawneetown. He remembers that it was very difficult to raise wheat in the early days. It looked well enough, but failed to mature and make perfect heads. Corn was the sole reliance for bread.
Notwithstanding the eighty winters that have silvered his head, he is as lively as a cricket, and from the cheerful words and pleasant smiles he fires sometimes at a robust widow of sixty-six years, we think he has some notion of marrying, and beginning life anew to "grow up with the country."
The first mill in the county was built by Jo Martin, who hauled the stones from Barren County, Ky. Gaston's "band mill" was soon afterward built in Little Mound Prairie. Its name was derived from the manner in which the wheel turned by the horses communicated power to the grinding machinery.
Many of our readers know of the creek which crosses the Liberty road just beyond Nathan Atteberry's farm, four miles south of Fairfield. It is now perfectly dry nine months of the year. It will be astonishing information to many of the present generation that on this creek was built the first water mill ever in the county. Mr. Atteberry said that a dam across the creek furnished water power enough to run a small pair of corn stones two feet in diameter. A heavy rain would fill the dam and enable the miller to receive business. This mill was of great utility, saving the scattered settlers many a trip to New Haven. It was universally recognized as one of the most valued public enterprises of the day. Such being the case, the capacity of the mill will be an interesting fact to note. Each damful of water would grind six or eight bushels of corn! Only that and no more. Abe Chapman used to illustrate the speed of the mill by the relation of a little incident: One day the miller, John Carson, started the stones and went to his home a short distance off. His favorite hound pup went to the meal box and ate the meal as fast as it came from the buhrs. When the miller returned, the grist was finished but no meal was in the box. However, the improved appearance of the valued hound was soon noticed and fully explained the mystery.
Between showers, the neighbors were welcome to come with their grists and grind by hand, after the oriental style.
George Merritt came with his father's family from Union County, Ky., March 25, 1816, first stopping at Concordia, White County, where the family made a crop, and then, in September, came to Wayne County, in Leech Township. He found then living here Alexander Campbell, in the edge of White County, and Isaac Harris. Mr. Merritt now thinks these included all the settlers who preceded his coming. With the Merritt family came Daniel Gray, Clarinda Hooper, and Samuel Slocumb (the father of Rigdon B. Slocumb). Merritt went to Concordia to get the first corn they had for bread, and took it down the river to New Haven to mill, on horseback. He had to cross the Skillet Fork on the trip, as is mentioned above.
George Merritt was born January 30, 1799, Pendleton County, S. C. Emigrated to Caldwell County, Ky., in 1809. In 1816, he came from Kentucky to Illinois, and located in Burnt Prairie, which was then Edwards County, but now Wayne, on the 18th day of August of that year. His father was Ephraim Merritt, born in Granville County, N. C., 1776, and died at Burnt Prairie in August, 1844. His grandfather, Stephen Merritt, of Granville County, N. C., was a Captain of colonial troops during the entire Revolutionary struggle for independence and participated in the following battles in South Carolina: Charleston, Monks Corner, Georgetown, Kings Mountain, Cowpens, and was wounded in a charge by Tarleton's cavalry at Cowpens, and also in a hard contested battle at Guilford Court House, N. C. The paternal ancestor of this branch of the Merritt family was from Wales, and emigrated during the time of colonization by Sir Walter Raleigh. The maternal ancestor was the daughter of the Rev. Micklejohn, a minister of the High, or Established church of England, born in Scotland and educated in England for the ministry, and emigrated to this country prior to the Revolutionary war, and received his pay annually from the Crown during his life.
Cadwalader Jones came, as stated above, in 1816, and the same year John Jones, his son, was born, and thus he will go into history as the first white child born in Wayne County. Parson "Jacky" Jones says he came very near missing the county when he "lit" in this world, the spot being within six rods of the east line of the county. He was born in a tent, made by placing a pole between two trees, and then boards and brush put up the sides and end. Parson Jones is yet a hale and vigorous old man, as full of the enjoyments of life, its fun and jokes as the gayest of our youngsters. He has spent his long life in the county, and amid the roughest early surroundings he has picked up a fair education and a fund of reading, and at one time in life was a successful school teacher, and also a preacher --- training the minds of the young and pointing to all the way to heaven.
Cadwalader Jones' wife died in 1826, and he survived until 1856, when he died in this county. There were fifteen children in the family, and "Jacky" was the eldest. Seven of these children are now living --- two boys and five girls. Two widows, Manahan and McKibbin, reside in Wayne County, and a son, Charles Jones, lives on the place first settled by his father.
Parson Jones says the nearest and only neighbors his father had were the Hunts, and Grandfather Jones, who lived in Edwards County. Of the early settlers in his portion of the county, the parson remembers Richard Burks, of North Carolina and family, whose children grew up, and in after years the family removed to Sangamon County. Then there were Aquilia McCrackin and family, who settled about a half mile from Jones. Five of the McCrackin children died in 1834, and the next year this family removed to Arkansas.
Harman Horn married one of the Burks girls. He was some time a Constable and Deputy Sheriff, and in 1837 he and family went to Arkansas.
Pulliam Higginbotham came with the McCrackins from Tennessee in 1819. The family went to Arkansas, in order to keep their slaves that they brought from Tennessee.Cadwalader Jones was an Indiana Ranger, in Barker's company. In scouting expeditions he traveled west about as far as Vandalia. While his company were in what is now Wayne County, one of them named Hensly, accidently killed his comrade, Hughes --- in some way mistaking him for the enemy and fired upon him. These rangers were in pursuit at that time of the Indians who had massacred the Cannon family on the Big Wabash. The murdered family consisted of old man Cannon and wife, and his son Samuel, and taking prisoners Mr. Stark and wife and a son-in-law, and an old lady and a young daughter of Cannon's. Stark soon made his escape and returned home, and Mrs. Stark only made her escape many months after, when the Indians were on the Illinois River, and on foot she eventually made her way back home. It was on Grandfather Jones' farm in Edwards County that Joe Boltinghouse was killed by the Indians --- an account of which we gave above.
Parson Jones remembers that when six years old, a Dr. Spring was the first doctor he ever saw. He also remembers passing through Fairfield in 1823 when there was but one house in the place. He thinks that the first death in this section of the country was the drowning of a trader named Dubois, in the Little Wabash. He was traveling for a man named Lasellet, who was at one time a trader, and the first in this part of the country. The first schoolhouse he has any recollection of hearing of, was about 300 yards from his father's house, and the first teacher was George McCown, the great-grandfather of Capt. Nick McCown, of Fairfield. This school was taught as early as 1823. He remembers as early, 1821, a preacher from Edwards County, named William Keith, who preached in some private house about two miles from the Jones place.Parson Jones was married when he was twenty-four years old to Nancy Staten, daughter of Peter Staten. He commenced preaching (Missionary Baptist) at the age of forty-two. Jacob Love was the first county School Commissioner of Wayne County, and under his sign manual Jones got a certificate and commenced teaching school. He says he went in heavy on Dillworth's Spelling Book and Scales' Reading Lessons.
Archy Roberts came to the county in 1817, and settled on what was afterward the George Borah place. Samuel Slocumb settled on the Moffitt place. John Harris, Archy Roberts and Daniel McHenry were among the first Methodist Episcopal preachers.
During the year 1818, there was added to those first comers as given above, Andrew Kuykendall, Andrew Clark, James Solomon and William Clark, Enoch Wilcox, George Borah, Felix and John Barnhill. Reuben Melton, Thomas and James Gaston, Joseph Campbell, Alexander and Andrew Clark, Tyra Robinson, William B. Davis. Owen Martin, George W. Hines, Peter Watson, Michael Turney, Needham Hillard, James C. Gaston, John Turney, Thomas P. Fletcher, Robert Gaston, John Carson, Andrew Carson, Henry Tyler, Daniel G. Gray, Robert Gray, Sol Stone, George Close, A. B. Turney, Henry Hall, William Gray, Benjamin Clark, John Atteberry, John W. Ellidge, John McCanley, Joseph Martin, Samuel Leech, John Livergood, Andrew Bratson, Ansley Clark, Seth Carson, Samuel Bain and John Moffitt.
George McCown came from Kentucky in 1817. He was one of five brothers, Scotch-Irish. Two of the brothers settled in Kentucky, two in Virginia, and the other in South Carolina. George McCown's second wife was Martha Nash, of Kentucky. The eldest child by the second wife was Francis, who came to Illinois with his father. Two daughters of George McCown were born here, namely, Nancy and Matilda. Francis married Parthenia Andrus in 1838, by whom he had two sons and three daughters, namely N. S. and James (died in infancy), Mary, who married Capt. Walsur, and died four years ago; and Helen, who married Thomas Locke, and is now living in Fairfield. Nicholas S. is one of the good people of Fairfield, whose biography may be found in another part of this work. In company with George McCown came Nicholas Smith, his brother-in-law. These two men were Rangers and belonged to the Regulators of the early time. Here are the names of over sixty settlers, young men about grown, some of them, and the most of them the heads of families. They, and others that we will refer to, were all there prior to 1819, and mostly participated in procuring the act of the Legislature, creating the new county of Wayne, which was enacted by proper law, making power March 26, 1819, and is as follows:
That all that tract of country within the following boundaries, to wit: Beginning at the White County line, dividing the Ranges 9 and 10 east of the Third Principal Meridian line; thence north to the line dividing Townships 3 and 4, to the Crawford County line, north of the base line; thenee west to the line dividng Towns 4 and 5 east of the Third Principal Meridian; thence south to the White County line; thence east to the place of beginning, shall constitute a separate county to be called Wayne. And for the purpose of fixing a permanent seat of justice therein the following persons be appointed Commissioners: Henry J. Mills, Benjamin Reynolds, George Claypole, Seth Gard and Levi Compton, which said Commissioners, or a majority of them, being duly sworn before some Judge or Justice of the Peace in this State, to faithfully take into view the convenience of the people, the situation of the settlements, with an eye to the future population, and eligibility of the place, shall meet at the house of Alexander Campbell, in said county, and proceed to examine and determine the place for the present seat of justice and designate the same. Provided, The proprietor or proprietors of the land shall give to the county, for the purpose of erecting public buildings, a quantity of land not less than twenty acres, to be laid out in lots and sold for that purpose; but should the proprietors refuse or neglect to make the donations aforesaid, then, and in that case, it shall be the duty of the Commissioners to fix on some other place for the seat of justice as convenient as may be to the inhabitants of the county, which place so fixed and determined upon, the said Commissioners shall certify under their hands and seals and return the same to the next Commissioners' Court in the county aforesaid, which court shall cause an entry thereof to be made in their books of record; and, until the public buildings are erected, the court shall be held at the house of Alexander Campbell.
The act then provides that the Commissioners shall have $2 a day each for their labors. It then provides that Wayne County shall vote in conjunction with Edwards County for members of the General Assembly of the State. And further that "the county of Wayne shall be and compose a part of the Second Judicial Circuit, and the courts therein be holden at such times as shell be specified," etc.
And Wayne County was launched upon the sea of municipal existence, and the noble crew were the pioneers whose names we have given above. At the helm stood Samuel Leech, one of the noblest of men, and a man whose life, here in those early days of the young county, will always stand out in history as the conspicuous and commanding figure, and in the following chapters detailing from the records the history of the county, the reader may bear in mind that it was nearly all the work of this good man.
| Visit Our Neighbors | |||
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| Marion | Clay | Richland | |
| Jefferson |
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Edwards | |
| Franklin | Hamilton | White | |
