early-leech

WAYNE CO., IL

Early Settlers. in Leech Township
By Eat her Carter Harris

The first settler in Leech Township, in fact in Wayne County, was Isaac Harris. He 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, Illinois, 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." This first cabin had a dirt floor and its size is shown by the statement of his daughter, Mrs. Betsy Goodwin, that four bear skins would cover tire floor.

Isaac Harris first came to this county in 1813 from the settlement at Big Prairie, White County, Illinois. There was a fort there and the white settlers coming in from the south and first settled near the Fort. But Isaac moved up into Wayne County feeding his hogs on "mast" or acorns from the Oak trees.

Wayne County History published in 1884, says Harris “became involved in a scrape with an Indian and fled the country in the night time, heading towards the settlement in White County.

Prairies

We notice in our early History the names of Prairies. In the days of the Indians there were many treeless areas and the early settlers named these Prairies. For example one finds this: "George Borah came with his family to Wayne County in 1818. He was one of the pioneer merchants of the County, first operating a store in Burnt Prairie, within two miles of where the town of Liberty now is," There was a whole area called Burnt Prairie. Later Liberty, Illinois in the Burnt Prairie area changed its name to Burnt Prairie. Cal Morrison of the village of Burnt Prairie said the men from New Harmony, Indiana used to ride over on their Arabian horses to deer hunt. They would set fire to the tall Prairie grass so their hounds could see the deer. His grandmother told him there would be just an occasional clump of tees here and there, in that area in the early 1800's.

Another section of Prairie in Southern Wayne County was called Turney Prairie because here settled Michael, Isiah, Thomas and John Turney. Around them was Reason Blesitt and his family of four children; William Watkins, Green Lee, Henry Conrad, George Close, and Nathan Atteberry and his two brothers and their families. Nathan, to quote our early History, "was a bound boy to John Turney, and by terms of the indenture was sent to school three months, and this was the total of his families in his lines."

Dr. R. L Boggs one of early Physicians was also born in Kentucky in 1811 and came to Wayne County in 1834. He said, "I was fifteen years old before I knew that sugar could he kept in anything but a gourd."

Tom's Prairie was an area northeast of Fairfield. Here the John Borah family settled. One of the first teachers was George Wilson who taught a school there as early as 1822.

Now after digressing away from Leech let us go back to some of the people our H history lists as living in Leech Township in early days. In fact many of these early settlers will be listed in more than one township in Wayne County for some of them settled awhile in one place then moved away to other parts of the county, or on further; other western states.

Methodist Society

A Methodist Society was in existence in 1830 at Moses Wcods' house in Sect ion 30 in Leech Township, the area of the Wagner homes. "Preaching was sometimes at Scion Harris' where there was once quite a revival. Also at Harlans' near Beech Bluff, and at Andrew Neals', Benjamin Mabry's and Marcus Day. Early members were the Woods', Stanley, Elizabeth Hooper, Frank Day and his wife with probably others." Rev. Benjamin S. Mabry from Tennessee united with this society about 1840 and was useful in building up the church.

At the earliest day of Mrs. Goodwin's (Isaac Harris' oldest daughter) 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 three hundred camped near Nathan Atteberry's home. Once she was so badly frightened by unexpectedly coming at full speed, arriving home almost dead. Her father 'gathered a parcel of men and moved 'em out'."

The daily food of the pioneers was corn meal, hominy, hear meat, venison, honey, end sassafras tea. The meal and hominy were ground in a mortar made out of a stump . The breadstuff for each day was ground up before breakfast. The grist was sieved and the finer portion called meal, the courser hominy. It was sifted through a home made sieve 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.

There were no stores in the county in the earliest day and men and women 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 one dress.