We, today, surrounded by every convenience and luxury of modern times, little
realize what our forefathers endured in the settlement of this, our Evans
Township. The youth of today will only know through the writings of our
forefathers, their records, papers, manuscripts — how our history began.
At the eastern end of the timber on upper Sandy the Thomas Brooke family in
1824 built the first log cabin. It is not recorded why they came, but with this
family came the Patrick Cunninghams, the Joseph Smiths, Horace Gaylord, Alva
Humphrey, Able Estabrook, William Hart, Samuel Hawkins, and George Hollenback.
With these people also came the family of Benjamin Darnell. According to record
in Wilkes County Court House, North Carolina, Darnell was a merchant trader who
traded household needs for cattle, bought land in Wilkes County for feeding his
stock and, with the land inherited from his father he owned about a thousand
acres. In a letter he said he was going to Illinois, because he wanted more
fertile land for his family and wanted to better his conditions. It is likely,
then, that the whole group of families came from somewhat the same area and for
the same reason. Following the routes the scouts had used, these people, with
their personal possessions traveled in cumbersome covered wagons drawn by oxen,
their stock either tied to the wagons or herded along by the young men on
horseback. Facing the great west with its dangers during the weeks on the trail
took courage.
It was nearing the fall of 1829, when they reached this
fertile, rolling, prairie and staked out their claims. Not much can be learned
about that first winter and its problems. The Darnell's daughter died on Dec.
18, 1829, and was buried on the Darnell claim.
In the spring of 1830
Joshua Evans came, and taking his claim on the north side of Sandy Creek, paid
Patrick Cunningham with a mare worth one hundred dollars to build him a cabin on
this claim. He lived here all his life, leaving his heirs on the land. The
Joshua Evans cabin was built in what is now the yard of Dell Kemp's farm home.
The first white children born at Sandy were Jarvis and Lucy Evans, and, to the
family credit, Jarvis was educated, finished Quincy college and became a
Methodist minister in 1854. In fact the area was eventually named Evans Township
in memory of this well known old settler.
In 1831 Thomas and Elizabeth
Darnell Judd, having heard from her father at Sandy of the great opportunities
in the new state of Illinois, left their home in Wilkes County, North Carolina,
and with ox team, covered wagon, and six children began the long trek. When they
arrived, they selected land across Sandy Creek and built a log cabin. To this
day the land is owned by a Judd descendant, Ralph French. Many more men came in
1831; among them James Reynolds, Thomas Dixon, John S. Hunt, John Darnell,
Lemuel Gaylord, John Griffith, Stewart Ward, four Jones brothers, Justis, Ira,
Barton, and Abram and Jeremiah Hartenbower.
The winter of 1830 and 1831
was the coldest and snowiest in the memory of the new settlers. Food was scarce
too, and the cabins not always able to keep the families warm. One story of that
winter is as follows: The father went for help for the care of his sick child.
While he was gone, the baby died, and the starving wolves that roamed the
prairie howled so close outside the cabin that the frightened mother put the
dead baby on the rafters, pushed a chest against the door as a barricade and
watched all night for fear a desperate wolf might leap through the window
covered only by a hide.
One incident of that winter is told as happening
near Magnolia. A man came on horseback to the mill for a sack of meal. As he was
on the way home, his horse fell exhausted in the snow. While he went for help
the wolves attacked the horse, tearing holes in its side. The horse was rescued
and lived. That winter it was said that pigs froze in the mud when the
temperature dropped 80 degrees in an hour.
Rattlesnakes were common then
and in summer of 1830 Joshua Foster claimed he killed 53 of the "varmints."
In those days doctors were scarce on the frontier, but elderly women went
out nursing, bringing with them herbs and other home made remedies used by their
mothers. A good mid-wife was about the most important person in the settlement
and, when she arrived at a cabin, her word was law, and everyone stepped lively.
But the old cemeteries with their many little graves tell a sad story of the
hardships of the settlers and the lack of medical skill.
In May 1832 the
people of Sandy Creek were warned that Black Hawk and his warriors had crossed
the Mississippi, near the mouth of the Rock River and were sending bands of
scalping Indians not only up that river, but also to the south and southeast
into the Illinois River country. When a massacre near Indian Creek occurred, and
several women were abducted, the settlers resolved to build a fort. Every able
bodied man with ox, gun, and spade repaired to the Benjamin Darnell farm, now
owned by Virgil Mann, dug a deep trench into which were inserted split logs ten
feet high, then the dirt was packed tightly around the barricade fence. The
exact dimensions of the fort are not known, but it must have been of
considerable size, for the men built cabins inside for seventy persons, dug a
well, had room for the wagons and other materials of the colony. There were
fifteen heads of families, about thirty children and some unmarried men. The
men, except in inclement weather, slept in the covered wagons within the fort.
One man was on guard outside the fort each night. The only Indians seen,
however, were a friendly family who were afraid of Black Hawk and wanted to come
to the fort for protection.
The only food within the Fort was corn meal
and meat. When some settlers deciding not to go to the Fort went to friends at a
distance away from Sandy, they left their cattle and swine in a compound for the
folks of the Fort to care for and use if there was a need for them. Whether this
stock in the compound was used is not recorded, but it was good insurance
against dire food shortage. It is interesting to note that the Joshua Evans
family did not leave his home and go to the Fort. Four men from Sandy enlisted
in Captain Wm. Howe's Rangers to fight Black Hawks' warriors, but, in a few
months peace was restored, and the settlers happily returned to their cabins and
welcomed their soldiers home. Just inside the Cumberland Cemetery entrance is a
monument erected by Darnell and Judd descendants to commemorate the building of
the "Old Fort." On this monument is stated the exact location of the Fort on the
Virgil Mann farm.
Poverty was prevalent in the country in the 1830's. In
fact actual money was scarce all over the states. The tools with which the
people worked were quite primitive. The gun, axe, spade, iron wedge, maul and
wooded mould-board plow were the implements used to work the woods and fields.
Women had to gather dyes from poke berries, walnut hulls and other plants, save
their wood ash and grease for soapmaking, melt the sheep tallow for candles, and
raise the material for all their clothing and food. Flax was raised, the straw
treated, then spun and woven into linen cloth for the summer dresses, shirts,
trousers, and underthings. Wool from the sheep each family raised was sheared in
the spring, washed, dried, picked, carded, and then spun and woven into flannel,
lindseys, and jeanes for the warm clothes of winter. Spinning wheels and looms
were important tools in the cabin.
A story comes to mind that was passed
on by a Wenona resident long since gone who had to wear the Lindsey Woolsey
britches his mother made him. "You couldn't tell by my pants whether I was
coming or going, but I had one consolation — all the boys had to wear the same
kind."
Each settler devised his own mill to grind the corn and wheat. A
large mortar, holding about a bushel of corn, was hollowed out of a big log,
and, with the help of a good pestle, made of hard wood or stone, a grown boy
could make enough corn meal for each day's use.
The meats were pork,
wild turkey, prairie chicken, ducks, deer, and, in the fall, bear meat.
Succotash, adopted from the Indians, was a favorite vegetable along with squash
and dried pumpkin. Plenty of fruit could be found in the woods.
Furniture in the cabin consisted of a strong, roomy, homemade table, and, if you
were well-to-do three or four splint bottom chairs. Otherwise you "made do" with
plenty of stools made of puncheon slabs mounted on stout legs. The bedsteads
were quite crude. Four posts were set up, then transverse poles extended
crosswise and fitted into the log wall of the cabin. This bed supported the
thick tick filled with dried prairie grass, and, if one came from the East, he
put a fine feather bed on top for sheer comfort. Sometimes a housewife might
have a few pieces of delft pottery to adorn the mantel above the fireplace.
Pewter and tin plates and tin and iron spoons were most common table settings.
An iron pot with heavy flat top on which live coals were placed, served as an
oven. Tea kettle and iron kettles hung on a swinging tram that swung over the
fire when cooking.
The settlers knowing how a light in the window of
their cabins might mean rescue to some wanderer in the bitter weather, made it a
habit to burn a candle in the window.
In 1833 the community was
organized as Sandy Precinct, part of LaSalle County, and on March 30th the first
election was held. The Justices of the peace that were elected were Justin Jones
and Richard Hunt. The constables were Burton Jones and George Martin. For
elections Thomas Judd and George Martin were chosen clerks and Alvin Humphreys,
Joshua Evans, and Horace Gaylord were judges. In the first state election on
August 4th, 1834 sixteen votes were cast.
In the same year surveyors of
the United States government surveyed all the area and divided it into sections.
The layout of the claims which the settlers had staked out was so at variance
with the-surveyor's lines that something had to be done to avoid land disputes.
A meeting was held and Thomas Judd, Joshua Evans and James Caldwell were named
as a committee who drew up a set of resolutions that each settler kept such land
as he originally claimed; and that upon entry of said claim after the land
should come into the market, the settlers would deed to one another according to
their original claims. This explains the peculiar division of farms at Sandy.
When these lands were surveyed by the government in 1834 Evans was the most
thickly settled section in Marshall County.
On June 19th, 1834 a law was
passed giving to each active settler the right of pre-emption of 160 acres of
land provided his family lived on the land until "said land" was brought to
market. Two families could share 160 acres, each one having 80 acres. The
settlers under these conditions could buy their land at $1.25 per acre. For
early pioneers, an orchard was considered conclusive evidence of actual
settlement. When this was not done, a speculator from the East had a much better
chance of getting the land away from the settlers when it was put up for sale.
For some reason the Sandy settlers had not planted orchards, so they had some
misgivings about being able to buy their claims.
President Van Buren in
the spring of 1838 declared all lands east of the third principal meridian and
south of the north line of Sandy Precinct "be offered at public auction to the
highest bidder." The election would take place at Danville in September of 1838.
Sandy settlers when they heard of the proclamation, rigged up wagons able to
contain about three men and their camping outfits, and the men were on their way
to Danville well before the appointed time. With them went the dollars that the
pioneers had been hoarding for a long time. Those going were Wm. Brown, Justis
Jones, Joshua Evans, George Beatty, James Caldwell, Sam Cox, Vincent Bowman,
John Hunt, Joseph McCarty, David Griffin, and Thomas Judd. Luck was with these
men, for no speculators came to the land auction, and the men hurried home with
the proof that the land was now their own.
With the land now secure,
improvements began at once. Orchards were laid out, and fences constructed. At
first the men tried digging ditches for fences piling the sod up at the banks of
the ditches. The cows pulled the sod down and got across the ditches so they had
to cut down trees, make rails and build rail fences which were used until after
the Civil War.
Another one of the pioneers coming to Illinois in 1835
from Bourbon County, Ky., was William Swartz, settling near Sandy Creek, where
he developed a good farm, experiencing the hardships and privations of pioneer
life. The old homestead was owned and occupied by the Swartz descendants until
1963.
With the growth of Sandy, need for products promoted some
industries. Two saw mills were set up, one on the Evans land, one on the Dent
land. John Evans set up a turning lathe so the ladies could have proportioned
and attractive table and chair legs and splint bottom chairs. Now parties began
too, social life centering around the school, home and church. Marriages were on
the increase and the young men generally chose their mates from their own
pioneer area.
In these days corn-shucking bees were big social events.
The corn would be plucked off, husks and all hauled home and dumped on the floor
of the barns. The neighbors came, divided into teams and started on equal piles
of corn. The captain of the winning team was carried on the shoulders of his
team to the house where a bountiful meal was ready and the girls and women
dressed in their prettiest served the winners first. Such home made pleasures
made the hard work worth while.
Everyone was astir about the
presidential election of 1840. An occasional newspaper would somehow get to
Sandy from Galens, Springfield, Chicago or Vandalia, and everyone in the
neighborhood got to hear the news. No secret ballots were yet in use, so at the
polling place a voter stuck his head in the window, the clerk called his name,
set it down under the name of the candidate of the right party, and at the end
of the day the votes were tallied. Both Whigs and Democrats voted in 1840, their
first presidential election, and eight votes went for Martin Van Buren the
Democratic candidate, the rest for William Henry Harrison the only Whig ever to
become president. For the first time in his career Abraham Lincoln's name was on
the ballot as a presidential elector for the Whig party. At this election two
Revolutionary War Veterans voted, one Lemuel Gaylord now buried at Cumberland
and Joseph Warner buried at Cherry Point.
In 1840 and 1841 Thomas
Alexander and M. Clarkson came from Kentucky and brought a herd of thoroughbred
cattle — "as fine a herd of shorthorns as could be found in the celebrated
blue-grass country." To Mr. Alexander, also, the community was indebted for the
fine blooded horses which he brought from Kentucky. Proof that Sandy was no
longer a frontier was given by the fact that Mr. Clarkson left the wooded area
in 1845, built for his family a fine house several miles south of Sandy on the
fine rich prairie. He was the lone resident in that area for years.
In
April 1843 the question of being attached to Marshall County was submitted to
the voters of Sandy Precinct. The great distance from the county seat of Ottawa
seemed to be the only argument in favor of the proposition, but that was enough
and every vote was cast for the same. Bennington township did the same. There
was not then a single inhabitant in the townships of Osage or Groveland in
LaSalle County.
SAMP was a coarse meal made from dry corn and cooked in
various ways by pioneers for everyday food. A mortar was made by hollowing out
one end of a log, forming a basin for kernels of corn which were pounded with a
pestle fashioned of hard wood.
After early settlers built their cabins,
the samp mortar could be heard resounding through the woods, usually in the
evening or early morning.
If a finer meal was needed, it was ground
between two flat circular stones in a hand-quern, then sifted. Johnnycake and
corn pone were made by adding sour milk, buttermilk or water; soda, salt and
shortening. An egg might go into the pone but not usually in the johnnycake
because it was preferred drier for better preservation when traveling. Thus the
name "journey cake" from whence "johnnycake" derives.
Pioneer women made their own soap. They saved and rendered bacon rinds,
cracklings, old lard and other fat scraps, then boiled them with rain water
and wood ash lye "strong enough to float an egg," stirring for hours until
thick enough to pour into a soap barrel or other container. If salt was
added, it helped harden the harsh, gelatinous mass so it could be cut into
chunks. A little sassafras improved the scent.
To get the lye, an
ash-hopper had to be built of boards placed upright, edge to edge, to form a
bin shaped like a wedge. Wood ashes were put into it all winter. In the
spring, water was filtered through them and the strong lye seeped to the
bottom where it drained into crocks or other vessels, ready to be used for
making soap or hominy.
A "ReCeet for Washin Cloes," given to a young
bride by her grandmother over a hundred years ago, called for shaving "one
hole cake of lie sope in bilin water." It got clothes clean but was murder
on the hands.
In the winter of 1832-1833, a man by the name of Ansen Bryant came to
Fort Darnell and proposed to teach school. They fixed up a cabin in the old
fort for him, and he taught a short time during the winter. The names of the
pupils who attended the school were: John Dent, Minerva Dent, Enoch Darnell,
Larkin Darnell, Benjamin Darnell, Alfred Judd, and William Evans.
In
the fall of 1833, the necessity of a more ample and convenient school room
was agitated, and the citizens decided to build a school house.
The
site chosen was near the residence of Lucy Gibson, which in later years was
known as the George Martin farm. The size was agreed upon and each of the
families was asked to furnish his portion of logs for the building and
deliver them "upon" the ground. This was promptly done, and raising of the
building was done in one day, the cracks calked and daubed with clay. The
school house had a puncheon floor, puncheon door, stick chimney, slab seats
and desks, and a long fireplace.
Fuel was contributed by each family
in proportion to the number of children sent. The teacher boarded around
with them and was paid by subscription.
One of the first schools on
record in this community was one taught by Thomas Gallagher in 1842-1843 and
was known as the "Sandy Grove" school. It was located on what was known as
the Marion French farm on Sandy and was often referred to as "Brush
College."
In 1846, Thomas Judd Jr. taught school, and an agreement
was made and signed by John G. Hunt, Jacob Myers, and James Beatty, in which
the trustees agreed to pay Mr. Judd ten dollars a month for teaching. One
half of his pay was to be paid in cash and the other half in livestock,
grain, or store goods at one-half price.
The well established
tradition of fine support for the schools of Wenona community began with the
defining of the school districts in Evans Township in 1851.
The new
school completed in August 1864 was a two story building. Trustees of the
district were: William Hamilton, Joseph Warner, and F. H. Bond. It was a
district school with two departments, and two teachers. The building was
outgrown almost before it was completed, and at a meeting in February 1866,
the district voted to enlarge.
By 1881, the school was again badly
overcrowded and new provisions were made for the primary grade.
In
1892, the Wenona grade school was built and originally served both high and
grade school students. It was reconstructed following a disastrous fire in
1907. This building stood in what is now the "City Recreation Park."
Wenona's beautiful high school building was constructed in 1926 and
occupied for the first time in January 1927. It is now known as Wenona
Community Unit I.
A number of country schools were common throughout
Evans Township which have passed out of existence to become a part of
consolidated schools.
Down through the years, families of Evans
Township have taken an active part in education in this community.
Dorothy McMeen
Extracted 28 Aug 2018 by Norma Hass from Old Sandy Remembers, published 1968 by the Marshall County Historical Society, pages 1-8.
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