HISTORY OF FORD COUNTY
Reminiscences by Mrs. Jane Patton
The following are excerpts from an interesting volume, entitled “Remembrances of a Pioneer," published in book form in 1904, by Mrs. Jane Patton, who is still living on the old homestead in Button township.
In 1884, my husband and I moved to Vermilion county, Illinois. We bid farewell to the home of our childhood and the homes that we had lived in and the good people that had lived there. Some of them live there yet, and I love to visit those old scenes of my young days. How sweet is their memory after so many years spent away from them!
The day we loaded our wagons to leave for Illinois, we had a house and yard full of people. They were so glad to get us away that they all wanted to help us start. They made us a barrel of kraut, and loaded five wagons, and about sundown we came across the creek to one of the places that I never get tired of going to, that was my Aunt Jane Campbell's and Uncle Samuel and Joseph Campbell's and spent the night. It was a hard trial to leave all the relatives and neighbors behind, — Mrs. Harshbarger, Mrs. Dice, Mrs. Greenley, an 1 many more that had been good to me in so many ways, besides all the relatives, but we had decided to come, and I think it was for the best that we did.
We were two days on the road. We brought two cows, four horses, chickens and turkeys. We stayed at Mr. Joseph Delay's, six or seven miles from the State line city, and ate dinner at Marysville, what is Potomac now. We got to our future home in the afternoon, in time to unload our goods and put up four beds and the cook stove. These were essential things that night, for there were five men came with us besides our own family; they came to drive the teams and have a good time, and they had it. We had brought lots of things cooked, and had a turkey for the first meal in our new home, and we all enjoyed our supper that evening.
That was Thursday evening, and all stayed with us until Monday morning, and then started for home. They had all seen those black prairies, but before they started for home they visited the deep cut prairie, Prospect City, what was afterward Paxton, but the railroad was the object in view. None of them had ever seen a railroad, as far as I know. I know I had not. There was only one house in Paxton, or what is Paxton now. The Mr. Stites' family was there, and the trains stopped when needed.
The boys wanted to get something to take home with them, and found some beans for sale, and bought them to take home. They wanted to kill a deer to take home, but did not get to do that, but got some venison some place, I think, but am not sure of that. Deer were plenty then, for you could see them almost every morning going from the timber out on the prairie, but they could see you about as soon as you would see them.
Mr. Patton went back to Indiana in December, and took the boys back there to go to school. There was no school here that winter.
The Illinois Central commenced to run trains the spring that we came here: in the fall there was no railroad at Danville, Illinois. Then men came to our house from Covington and the country around there more than once to go to Loda or Paxton and take the train to Chicago.
I forgot to tell the names of the ones who came with us when we moved to this country — Obidah Marlatt, long since dead, my uncle, Samuel Campbell, Joseph Douglas, a cousin, and my own brother, S. Cade.
The first Sunday Mrs. William Robison came. I had never met her, but she and Mr. Robison came here from Fountain county. Some of the Robisons and Woods live there yet. They lived in the field just south of here, but there is no house there now. She died the next June.
She came the first Sunday and was very cheerful and friendly. It did me lots of good to have a neighbor so soon. She helped me just as if she had always known me, but she was taken suddenly sick of inflammation of the stomach, and died. We miss our friends when they are gone, and do not forget their kindness.
I will now tell about who lived here when we came here that fall. Uncle Tommy Lion lived at Sugar Grove then — in the house that has always stood there until lately. Mr. Bittle bought Mr. Lion out, and then Mr. Patton bought the land of Mr. Bittle. Mr. Hiram Driskal and his family lived on the Driskal farm. All these have gone to their long homes, Mrs. Driskal lately. A Dr. Hobert lived in what is now a cattle pasture, just east of the Sugar Grove schoolhouse. His family all died, three or four with what is known as milk sickness, and then he left and got married again, and then died. Vannata lived at what is known as the Lamb farm; Mr. David Morehouse lived where Joseph Kerr lives now; Mr. Jesse Piles lived on the Piles farm, the farthest out from the timber. Mrs. Piles still lives in Hoopeston, but Mr. Piles had gone to his long home. Estrige Daniels lived on the farm that La Fayette Patton lives on, but the house was over in the field. Elihu Daniels lived south of William Moudy's. There is no house there now.
Three families of Tanners lived up close to where the frame and brick churches are now; the father, old Mr. Tanner, lived west of the brick church, and Peter lived southeast, close to the frame church, and John lived north. Uncle John Dobbs, as every one called him, lived between the two churches, on a farm known as the old Walker home. His house was the place where we all went to church, had preaching every three weeks, and class meeting every Sabbath, something we do not have now.
The house was a large hewed log house, with a fireplace, and room for three beds, and for all the people that there was to come. Uncle John Dobbs was class leader, and a good one. I would like to go to a meeting of that kind now.
There was John P. Dobbs, and he lived close there, but the next spring he moved out on the prairie, not far from old Pellsville, the farthest out of any one then. He built a house with one room upstairs and one room downstairs. Obidah Marlatt gave it the name of the North Pole, and that was the name of the neighborhood for a while. That was the first house north of us until we got to Ash Grove. That spring two more families moved out on the prairie, Mr. Dove and Mr. Shannon, one east of us, and Mr. Dove northeast of us. I remember seeing Mr. Dove's team the first trip he made with the material for his house. I think the team must have been three miles from our house. There was nothing there then but the prairie grass, green or brown, as the season might be. Southeast of our home half a mile, Harmon Strayer and his brother John lived, and northwest of us about three miles Milton Strayer lived. He is remembered as one of the good men of this world. He was kindness to perfection; and Matthew Elliott, father of W. H. H. Elliott, and he and his family were all Methodists of the old-time religion. Their house was the first house I ever ate in away from home, after coming to Illinois. We went to church to our home. Uncle John Dopps, and went there for dinner. We had venison for dinner, I remember. I thought then we had good people here, and I think so yet. We had been here about three weeks then. There has been regular preaching by the Methodist preachers right in the same place. Only a short time after Uncle John Dopps went away, preaching was in the schoolhouse until the church was built.
I would like to tell the names of the ministers that have been here in these forty-four years, but I think many of them are reaping their reward, and their works do follow them. I will not say anything more about this eventful year at the present time.
1885. That winter was one of the cold, stormy winters of that time, and
we got the full benefit of the winds and the snow. I think the snow stayed
on the ground perhaps six weeks or more, and cold all the time, and only two
rooms to our house, and a smokehouse and a stable for the horses and two
cows; no fence, only a pen for the corn fodder for the cows and horses. We
bought that, and the cows would stay for the feed, for there was no fence to
keep them.
Mr. Patton hired the rails made to fence one hundred and sixty acres of
land, a good fence staked and tow rails on the top, and Mr. Patton and Obe
Marlatt hauled all the rails to fence it, through the storms and snows.
Sometimes the snow would blow and drift so that we could not see the tracks
of the wagon of the next load. I could see them when they left the timber,
and get almost any kind of a dinner, except cook dry beans, before they
would get home to dinner. It was a mile and three quarters straight west of
the house where we lived to the edge of the timber where they got the rails,
and I could see them very plainly.
In the after part of the winter Obe Marlatt went to Bloomington after plows to break the prairie; that was as near as they could be gotten. He bought five, some for the neighbors. I think if some of the people had to do as we did they would think they would have a hard time now. Well, that spring it was break prairie with our own four-horse team and an ox team. The man broke by the acre, $2.50 per acre, broke and planted sowed corn, about one hundred and forty acres, and raised the best vegetables of all kinds, melons, pumpkins by the wagon-load, and the best corn. We sold one hundred acres of it to cattle feeders the next fall for five hundred dollars, and was pleased with our year's work.
In the spring we built two rooms to our house, and dug a cistern, fenced in a garden, and put an addition to the stable.
Money was very plentiful that summer or spring. John Adamson that lived at Covington, brought two hundred and over of four-year-old steers to be herded on the prairie, and they were so large and got so fat on the grass without any expense except to pay the herder and for salt, the prairie grass was so fine.
1856 was another year of improvement. We set out the fence to take in more land, hauled more rails, and built two houses on the farm that winter for two tenants to move on the farm in the spring.
That spring I was sick, had a spell of fever, and had a girl to stay with me. I had gotten so I did not need her, and she was going home Sunday morning, but Saturday evening she took a chill and was so bad Sunday Ave sent for her aunt, Mrs. Solomon Koder, but we did not know anything about the disease then. It was spinal or spotted fever, and the doctor nor any one else could do any good, as doctors fail in most cases of that disease. Her name was Nancy Skinner. There were three of them. They were orphan children, and their aunt, Mrs. Koder, had raised them. All three of them were about grown, and all of them died in a very short time. They had such a good home with their aunt and uncle.
That summer everything was corn. We could not see the country so far away, and the people had come to the country so fast that there were new houses on all sides of us. There was lots of corn, and no sale for it, unless cattlemen came in with cattle to feed the corn to. Corn would grow then if you planted it, without any tumble. The weeds had not got a start then, only the tumbleweeds, and they would roll over the field and lodge against the fences as high as the fence.
1857 was a new year, and how many times we make resolves to lead a better life if these things concern our future welfare which it should. If we start wrong in our work we are very sure to come out wrong, unless we repent and go back and do our work over again. It is so much easier to make good resolutions than it is to keep them. I have found this true all through life. How true the words prove, "Prone to wander. Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love."
This winter we did not do much work on the farm and improve it so much, and March 23d there came to our house another baby boy. We called him Charles Delaware, the Delaware being the name chosen by his oldest brother.
This summer was the same; plow, raise corn, cut prairie grass, and cut up corn, and have lots of men to work, as we always had. But the last of this year there came the greatest calamity that we were ever called to pass through. Mattie, our only girl, came home from school sick with what proved to be cerebral spinal fever and as spotted fever. She was very bad from the first, and her suffering was simply agonizing. Her muscles were contracted, and sometimes her head would be drawn to her hips almost like a hoop. We had a Dr. Courtny from Blue Grass Grove, and a Dr. Whitmore, but they did not do any good, neither do I think any other doctor would. Their principal medicine was solelia.
She was very sick eight weeks. When we would go to turn her in bed and let her limbs fall it would almost kill her but she lived through all this intense suffering. So many times she would have spasms, and we would think she would not live one hour, but she got over all this suffering without being left with some mark of it for life. She was past seven years old at that time.
One or two days after Mattie was taken, LaFayette was taken bad also. He had more fever, and his muscles did not contract so much; it was more in his head, and it has left its mark with him for life, for he has always been deaf ever since that time. He had gone to school just two or three days. He was sick seven weeks, and when he got better so he was conscious and knew us, we did not know that he had lost his hearing, and was to be deaf all his days. But one night some one was there and brought a little dog, and it came close to his bed and lie laughed at it. We talked to him about it and he would not say a word, and then we knew he could not hear, but it never came to my mind that it was to be permanent, or it would have been much harder to bear. His speech did not leave him. He just forgot most of the words, being so young, just two or three weeks past four years old, and he says words yet.
There was living at our house with us a good, sweet girl. Her name was Margaret Shoey. She had been with us about a year and a half. She had a mother and an inhuman stepfather, and the neighbors got her away from them. Mr. Dove had lived close to them, and got us to go and get her, but she hid from him the first time, and the second time she just told him she would not go.
She took the same as the others had Saturday evening. Both doctors were there, but there was no help for her. The spots were more marked than on our own two children. She died Monday night or Tuesday morning at one or two o'clock.
The disease was epidemic. There were fourteen deaths in the surrounding country, but our neighborhood suffered the most. One little girl about two years old, Sylvester King, half a mile north of our home, died. She was sick just two or three days. John Wilson's half a mile southeast of us, lost a sweet little girl about the same age; and Mrs. David Morehouse, half a mile south of us. All these were taken away in two or three days' sickness.
We were all just like one family around there then. I left my own sick ones to go and prepare the bodies of those that had died. I speak of when our house was full of people helping us with our sick ones.
There were no trained nurses then, and no coffins kept in the furniture store for sale. The first thing after death was to straighten the body and take the measure for a coffin, and go to the carpenter's and get a coffin made, for that would take some time and the funeral would be appointed accordingly. I have helped take the measure of a great many people for a coffin, for I was a born leader in taking care of the sick and caring for the dead. I commenced that kind of work before I was married. I remember a little baby just a few days old that I took on my lap and dressed for the grave, when I was not more than seventeen years old. I think this will sound strange to some.
1858 came with all of the sickness and death. Some had died before the new year came, and some after it came in. Mr. Elihu Daniels, south of the Will Moudy farm, died, and Mr. Lucas had a daughter about fourteen years old to die; A Mr. Mullen, that lived west of the brick church, had two little children that lived with them. They had no children of their own, and these two died. I think the disease was not contagious, but it was epidemic. I never want to see another time like that. There was a family lived east on our farm. Their names were Hartman. They just stayed at our house. They had two little girls, and they slept on the bed with our sick children. Mr. Hartman would only go home to feed his things, sometimes for two or three days; then they would go home to sleep and rest, and come again, and his brother stayed all the time, and their children never took the disease. Who can forget the people that do so much for you in such distress and affliction? The people did not do any work around there, only what had to be done, and went where they were needed the most. I could write about it, and never get done telling how good the people were to us, and all the rest that had sickness and death in their family. The tears will come sometimes yet when I think of it.
That spring the creeks were very high. We could not cross the middle fork of the Vermilion for six weeks, there was so much rain, and no bridges then. There was a man drowned that spring in the creek, close to Charley Wood's home and it was more than a week before the body was gotten out of the creek.
Mr. Patton's father came out to see us that spring, and went home and took sick, and died May 31, 1858. Some one came after Mr. Patton, and he went and found his father very sick. He stayed a few days and then came home, but he was soon sent for again to attend the funeral.
The east fork of the Vermilion was very high. He went horseback, and had to swim his horse to get over the creek. No way to go on the railroad and no telegraph dispatches then.
We took a wagon and went over into Indiana in August to attend the sale of the personal property, Mr. Patton and his brother being the administrators of his father's estate.
1859 came, and nothing special happened until fall, when Mr. Patton rented out our farm here to a Mr. Hunt and Isaac Brown, of Indiana, for five years, and made arrangements to move back to Indiana, his father having left him a farm. He had two wagons loaded to go back, but I was not very much in favor of going and leaving more here than we could get there. That night after supper Mr. Patton came down to Mr. Wm. Robinson's and bought his farm of two hundred acres of land, the forty that our house is on and the one hundred and sixty south of our home. We never thought of going back to Indiana since, but loved to go and visit, and to see the old home of my childhood, but the most of the ones that I knew so well are gone.
1860. And who is it that is fifty or sixty years of age that does not remember the first five years of the sixties; about Abraham Lincoln and the war times, and how we would watch for the news if we did not have any friends there.
That spring we moved from the house we had lived in about one-quarter of a mile from the house I call home now, into a double hewed log house, with an entry between them. On January 22d there was another one added to our family, and we called him Franklin. He was a very delicate little one and always was through life.
We built our house that fall under many difficulties. The first house we lived in the lumber was all hauled from Indiana, and we expected to have the inside work of our present house of black walnut lumber, but got it home from Indiana, and put it in a kiln to dry, and it took fire and all burned up, except enough for our front door, three wagon loads. All the lumber was hauled from Paxton, and the brick for the cellar from Ten Mile Grove, the other side of Paxton. In October, William went to get a load of brick, and as he was coming home he had a barrel on his wagon on top of the brick, and he was on top of the barrel. The barrel fell off and he also, and the wagon ran over his legs and mashed one of them as wide as the wagon tire, so some of the pieces of bone were on the outside of his leg when I got to where he was. He crawled to the horses and unhitched them and got on and rode one of the horses to Mr. Montgomery's and we were sent for.
Mr. Patton was after cattle up at Paxton. He was sent for and brought two doctors. Dr. L. B. Farrar and a Dr. Smith of Loda, and we had sent for a doctor five or six miles south of our home. We got him home about midnight, and all three doctors held a consultation. Two doctors were for amputation, but Dr. Farrar would not give up to have it done, and the doctors set the limb and Dr. Farrar took the case. Billy, as we called him, had almost bled to death before the doctors got there, and the doctor had cold water poured on his limb for several days every half hour or so, and saved his foot, and Dr. Farrar, of Paxton, should have all the credit that Billy Patton has two feet to walk on to-day.
Well, I did not have a very easy time that fall — all the carpenters and the men to cut corn, for that had to be done if we got anything for the corn; Billy and a sickly baby to care for. I had two girls to work for me some of the time. Mr. Antony Godson worked here, and the girl that afterwards became his wife, Susan Keplinger. John Harmon that lives in Los Angeles, California, did the outside carpenter work, but had Uncle John Koder and a Mr. William Civill to help, and after the building was enclosed Mr. Koder did the inside work and Mr. Wm. Kinmin did the mason work — the fastest man I ever saw work at any kind of work.
1861 came as all years do, and we had moved in our new house, which was a good one for those times in this country, full two stories high, with five rooms above and four below, and a cellar under the house. It has been a comfortable home for forty years, but sorrows have come often, and pleasant times also. If it were possible for me to live in this house for forty more years and I would take care of it as I have done, it would be a good house at the end of eighty years if fire or cyclone did not destroy it.
The first glass windows in the sitting room are all good, and never one pane of glass has been broken out after forty years.
I would like to see all the different people that have made their homes for a long and some for a shorter time with us in this house in the forty years that it has been my home. Many have gone to their long home that had a home with us and were employed by us to work in the house and on the farm. I would like to see them all at one table. I think it would reach a long way.
1862 came and passed without any special incident to our family, only the same routine of work that comes to people in every-day life. The horrors of the Civil War were thought more of than anything else those times, and how anxious we were to hear from the ones that left.
1863 came and without incident, only we had plenty of work to do. We had a large drove of cattle that year, and herded them on the prairies that summer. We did lots of farming, and raised wheat, at that time, here on the prairie better than can be raised now on the prairie.
In June that year, the 25th, there came a little girl to our home, and we called her Ida J., and she made lots of racket most of the time when her eyes were open.
That December Billy came home from Indianapolis. He had been there at school, and soon after coming home to spend the holidays took the lung fever and was very bad sick; and one week after that, his father took sick with the same disease. I suppose you would call it pneumonia now. This year had a sad ending to us.
1864 came as no other year that I ever saw, and never to be forgotten. The first day of that year was the worst storm or blizzard. You could not see three steps from you, and it was so cold that you would freeze in a very short time. Sammy Patton and a Mr. Smith had a hundred and twenty-five head of cattle about one mile east of our house that they fed shock corn to, and they would never have gotten home that day if it had not been that there was a rail fence that they got close to and followed to our house and barn. There was a number of people perished that day and night in Illinois. So many school children started home and were lost by the way, and lost their lives or limbs.
Mr. John Wilson, a neighbor, lost over one hundred head of hogs in that storm. Dr. L. B. Farrar came next morning to see our sick folk, and stopped on the way and warmed at Mr. Button's and when he came to our house he was so cold he could hardly get to the house, and the snow was drifted so that it was almost impossible to get any place. Almost all the chickens in the country froze to death.
Mr. Patton took sick that New Year's day and Dr. Farrar was attending to Billy, and then we sent to Urbana for Dr. Summers to come. Mr. Daniel Moudy went after Dr. Summers. Mr. Moudy will never forget that trip, he almost sacrificed his life for us in that great affliction. Dr. Summers came and stayed three day and nights, and Dr. Farrar was here most of the time. He came through the bitter cold weather and the snow drifts which lasted several weeks, the like of which I have never seen in this country before or since. Mr. Patton was not expected to live, and Billy was very sick all this time.
Eight days after Mr. Patton took sick, Samuel, the second son, took as the rest; the red, brick-colored spittle, and pain in the left side like all the others. The doctor was here at the time he took down, but could not check the disease, and he was very bad sick. Three beds in two rooms, and most of the time three men to care for the sick and sometimes more, day and night. There were no trained nurses at that time, but I got to be a pretty good one before all got well, especially in taking care of fly blisters. Three men sick at one time. It did not take me long sometimes to shed tears with all the care and trouble I had and hard work, and to think of things out of doors and in the house.
Joseph Harris came and left his home and stayed twenty-six days, and fed the cattle and took care of the other stock, and in the deep snow and very cold weather. Money does not pay for such work at such times, and the men in the neighborhood would come and stay, sometimes two or three days and then go home and sleep and rest, and then come back again. What would we have done if the neighbors hadn't been so good? I never got tired of doing something for the sick after that, as long as I was able, if I could do it, no matter who they were.
After all I have told about this siege of sickness in our own family, Charles McGlaughlin, an old Irishman that had no home only our house, took down with the same disease one week after Sammy took sick: three downstairs and one upstairs; four beds occupied with the sick; one or the other of the doctors was there almost all the time.
Franklin Rice went to Indiana after William Patton, and to tell the folks over there about the family all being sick, and William Patton came and stayed fifteen days, and his sister came soon after and stayed several days. All these trips then were worse than a trip to Denver would be now, but all our family got well after three months from the first to the close of the sickness. There was only one death in the neighborhood, and that was a young man named Shaver.
If we never got sick we would not be thankful for good health. I thought sometimes that I was nearer worn out than the sick were; I would go out in the kitchen sometimes after something and forget what I went after, but never gave up but once and that was the afternoon that Samuel came in and I had to fix another bed for him. I sat down on the floor and cried, and thought I could not do anything more, but I thought this will not do, and I had to do all I could do, and was thankful I had so much help. This is enough for one year, but not half I could tell about it.
1865 was a year of no special incident in the family, only the common work on the farm and in the house. There was always plenty to do that year. Billy came home from Jacksonville the 15th of April, the day Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and when he came about five o'clock in the evening I went to meet him, and the first word that he said was to ask if I knew that the President was killed. I had not heard it until then. A Mr. Ballard had just moved in the house we first lived in, and I went there the next day, and when I told him he just walked the floor, he was so excited that he did not know what he was doing hardly. The whole country was stirred up and in mourning for the beloved President's death. His name will live through ages to come.
February 27, 1902. After almost one year of the time has passing I will try to finish the sketches I commenced some time ago, and will tell something of what happened in the year that has just closed, the year 1901. In this year I have passed through the greatest affliction of my life of bodily suffering that it was possible for me to pass through, and still live to tell about it, but I will never tell it all for it would be impossible to tell it so any one would know how much I suffered.
May 8, 1901. I ran a small oak splinter in my forefinger on my left hand, and blood poisoning started from the effects of the splinter. The next day, the 9th of May, we called Dr. Wylie, of Paxton, and Dr. Hester, of Clarence, and they split my finger. The next day they came and split my finger and the third time had eight or nine places opened on my hand. I did not know much by this time, and when the doctor would dress my hand it was all I could do to stand it. The doctor came twice a day for a while, and then went to Chicago for a trained nurse, and she stayed ten days. I had to have medicated water poured in every two hours, and take whiskey and strychnine every four hours. The perspiration from the poison was very offensive, and I had to have alcohol baths twice a day and a chill one every twenty-four hours, and suffered intensely then. I would sometimes look at my hand and wonder if it would ever get better.
Oh, how glad I would be when the doctor would get through dressing it! But everything has an ending, and so did my trouble with blood poisoning, after being under Dr. Hester's care from May 9th until July 17th, making fifty-nine visits. I thank him for his kindness to me all this time. May God's blessing be with him through life, and may he live a righteous life, and be a blessing to the people wherever he may be.
"I am exulting while I may. For joy is uppermost today.”
1866. This year there was lots of work to do. Some of the children at school and some at work at home. I will here write a subscription, or copy of it, which was written March 13, 1866, for John Keplinger, who lost his limb just at the close of the war. They were our neighbors then.
Sugar Grove, Champaign County, Ill. We, the undersigned, agree to pay John Keplinger, who has lost a leg in defense of our country, the sum annexed to our names, for the purpose of assisting him to get an artificial leg.
L. H. Unstad $2.00, Charles McLaughhan 2.00, Anton Giteen 2.00, R. F. Kerr 1.00, David Patton 5.00, J. H. Flagge 1.00, Harmon Strayer 1.00, Arthur F. Flagge .50, Wm. Montgomery 1.00, James Mercer .50, Stephen Lamb 1.00, Joshua Lucas 1 .00, John Warren 1.00, A. B. Lucas 1.00, W. H. H. Elliott 1.00, S. P. Mitchell 1.00, George P. Gitson 1 .00, John H. Gitson 1.00, Aaron Albier 1.00, A. M. Elliot .50 , Elam Wait .50, Thomas Elliot 1.00, Milton Strayer 2.00, Joseph Harris 1.00, G. O. Marlatt 1.00, James B. Lucas 1.00
John Keplinger lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, and I suppose gets a good pension at this time, March 4, 1902.
In the winter of 1866 we had a revival in the church. Here, I see by a letter that I wrote then, that Billy joined the church at Jacksonville that winter, and some names here at home that united with the church — Mrs. Hiram Daniels, George Tanner, and some of the Sedletter boys. The Rev. Bannan was the pastor at that time, and stayed with us while the meeting lasted; and Mrs. Search had so much influence in the church that winter. The Search family moved to Southern Illinois that spring, and we were sorry to see them leave the neighborhood, for Mr. Search was the life of the Sabbath school in the Flagge schoolhouse at that time.
1867 came with its sorrows and joys, as most years do. On February 20, 1867, there came to our house a new baby girl, and she got to be the pet of the family, and ruled things as she pleased in her babyhood and girlhood also. That winter I had lung fever, and came near leaving this world; was sick about four weeks. We named the baby Allie, and now there had been eight children added to the family in a little over twenty-one years, and how many wants are to be supplied with eight children to care for. When Henry C. Dodge wrote "Nobody knows but mother," I think he was right.
“Nobody knows of the work it makes To keep the home together, Nobody knows of the steps it takes, Nobody knows but mother. '”
Mary Frayne was here, and had been for over one year, and stayed until the next May or June. She was a kind, good girl.
Billy taught school at the Flagge school house that winter, and Sammy and La Fayette went to Jacksonville, Illinois, to school. Sammy to the Illinois College, and La Fayette to the deaf-mute institution.
Times have changed since then. I see by a statement today with a Paxton hardware and implement store, that Mr. Patton settled February 7, 1867, with the hardware man at Paxton. He had bought two Schuttler wagons, and they cost $242.50, and one barrel of flour $14.50 and one $13.50, and there were no trusts then. And sold eleven hundred bushels of rye at 85 cents per bushel. This is all about 1867 that I want to tell.
1868 was a new year with many things connected with it. Who is it that enters a new year without making resolves to live a better life, and we should thank the Lord for all the blessings we receive at his hand. We should praise God for a home and the blessings of a home.
But what changes since then! I take from a store bill at that time, dated 1868, George Wright's store, a few items.
One one-half pounds Young Hyson Tea $1.20, 10 sheets paper .10, 1 lead pencil .10 ,1 broom .40, 12 pounds sugar 2.00, 9 yards bed ticking 4.05, 4 spools thread .40
I forgot to tell about the building of the first church that was built in the country around here. It was built in 1868. It was a Methodist Episcopal church, and still stands a monument to many that have gone to their long homes, and there has never been a time when there has not been preaching services in it. It was dedicated in November, 1868, by the Rev. Dr. R. N. Davies. It is known as Pleasant Grove Church.
I have before me a note that Mr. Patton paid September 2, 1871, that had been given to make up a deficiency on account of some of the subscribers failing to pay their subscription — I think over three hundred dollars in all; and Mr. Patton was very proud of our church and paid it willingly.
1870. This year was without special events to our family. Christmas of that year I went to Chicago with Edd Kingon, a deaf-mute that stayed with us that year, and when he went home to spent the holidays, I went with him, and stayed four days. I had a nice time, and was very much interested in what I saw in Chicago, but it was not much like it is now. I was at an entertainment at the Wabash Avenue M. E. church, and to the First M. E. church, and to the First Presbyterian church, and to the Museum, and everything was different from what I had ever seen. I thought it wonderful, and Mr. Kingon and family entertained me royally, and showed me around the city. I came home, but Edd spent some time before he came back.
September 3d of this year I got the first sewing machine that I ever had, only a little hand sewing machine to fasten to a table; but the Grover and Baker machine cost seventy-five dollars, a note on a year's time. "P. S. Point Pleasant, Robert Bradley, Agent," so says the old note before me.
1871. The years come and go, whether we are ready or not. Our home affairs were just the same as usual throughout this year, as far as I can remember. The last days of September, Mr. Patton and I went to Indiana, and came home the first week in October, I think the driest time I ever saw, and the great fire at Chicago the 9th of October made us all feel sad; and the forest fires filled the air so full of smoke that you could not see very far. We had no deep well then, and had to haul water for a mile, and the stock had to be taken to the creek for water. It took the cattle herder half of the time to get the cattle to the water and back.
1874. The new year had dawned upon us in quiet beauty, and the sunshine of God's love is over us. The dear old year was kind to us. Each day brought some new blessing to us, whether we were thankful for the blessing or not. The new year brought to us a deep well, with fine water after three months of hard work and many discouragements, Mr. Ketchum and Mr. William Le Fever sank a well, or made a trial for a well, and did not succeed, and then moved to another place, where our well is at the present time; and oh, the joy that came to us when the well was completed that June, and the windmill of the Haliday make was put up and ready for work, and the well-house finished and a tank for the milk put in. There was not any place that I enjoyed at our house so much as the well-house, and why should I not, after twenty years of getting water sometimes one place and sometimes another. One shallow well would go dry and we would go to another, and then when it rained they would all have water in and would overflow, and the water would not be fit to use, not even to wash dishes in. Sometimes I could not get supper until the men would come home from the field and haul water. This was Illinois before deep wells were made. 2 Peter ii; 17; Wells without water. Rev. xxi: 6: I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. All the years since that time the well has never gone dry, for the supply has never run out.
1875. Again a new year has come to us. The old year was kind, and waited and watched to supply all our needs. This year in many things was the same to us as other years.
W. T. Patton, or Billy as we called him when we wanted him to get up to breakfast, thought the best thing he could do would be to get married. So November 25, 1875, he was married to Fanny M. Flagge. Our family had been going up the mountain, and stopped on the top when Allie was born in 1867, and stayed there for seven years, and then commenced to go down on the other side, one by one, until all are gone, and I am left alone. Billy sat at our table longer than he has at his own, at this writing.
The realm of advanced activity in the years since that time is everywhere manifested; the resources of every department are being fully taxed. Daring adventures, mechanical inventions, scientific discoveries, commercial enterprises — all these give signs of progress and unparalleled activity in the years since the date of this page.
1876. Almost always the new year makes us think of past years, and what may happen in the year we make our figures for now.
This year was centennial year, and many memories of that time cling to 1776 and to the year 1876, for the celebration of the year at Philadelphia that year was a grand celebration of the one hundred years before.
There was no special occurrence in our family that year that I remember of until October. Mr. Patton went to visit his old home in Fountain county, Indiana, where he always loved to go so well, and his oldest sister came home with him to visit us a week and then return home. Mr. Patton was going to take her home, but on Friday evening she took a chill. She was very sick from the first, and died the next Wednesday, the 20th of October, 1876. The body was taken back home. It was so sad for us to think how well she was when she came to us, and how soon she was taken from us. When we went over to her home, my brother and his wife had gone to Philadelphia to the Centennial. This is all I will say about this year. So many sad things come to us in our lives.
1877. The new years come to us with many memories of the past, and of our duty before us for the future for each other, and to live for the good of others, and that the world might be benefited by us being in it if we live right.
The 11th of February the first granddaughter was born to us. W. T. Patton and Fanny M. Patton. A bright little babe, and how much we were all interested in its welfare; but alas, how soon it was taken from us! It was named Eva.
Some time before this I had been called to superintend the arrangements where there was a new baby, and looked after the welfare of the mother and child, and I can say I went wherever I was called, day or night, rain or shine, and I always asked God to guide me aright in whatever I did, and success attended all my work of this kind, and there was never a death of mother or child in the more than twenty years of my practice of that kind of work within a circle of three or four miles, and sometimes five or six miles. I was called to visit the sick and care for the dying. There were no trained nurses at that time, and the undertaker was not sent for as they are now. I always knew that there was no one sick or I would know of it, for I was often sent for before the doctor, and if I said a doctor was needed, that was sufficient, he was sent for. I would often stay with the sick and the dying two or three days. My motto was that if I could be more benefit away from home than at home there was the place I wanted to be. I never lived for myself alone. I always took an interest in other people's welfare. I rejoice that I was permitted to live at the time I did, and in the evening time of life I would do as much as ever if strength would permit me to do it; but now I will do as much as I can with my pen by writing letters and cheering words to all. Poverty and riches have little to do with our happiness in this life.
1879. This year is not to be forgotten by some of our family. This year, the 10th of April, the oldest daughter of the family left the home of her childhood, the family circle, the loving mother, the kind and indulgent father, and the affectionate brothers and sisters, for the affections of another, and changed her name from Martha I. Patton to Martha I. Flagg, to share the joys and sorrows of a husband, James W. Flagg. One more had left the parental roof. The family are going down on the other side of the hill one by one.
This was a prosperous year on the farm. The largest and best crop of wheat that year, and our cattle were fine and did well. We got a good price for everything.
1880. This year came in with joy and gladness, but how soon our joy may be turned to sorrow. We never know what a day may bring to us, and we will be called to endure trials that we think we cannot bear up under. This was the case with me at this time.
Mr. Patton left home February the 20th of this year, on Friday morning, and went to his old home over on Coal Creek, what he always felt was his home more than Illinois; after living here twenty-six years; Fountain county was dearer to him than the home we had here.
That night he took a chill, pneumonia developed, and there was no remedy. The doctors were powerless. Dr. Spinning of Covington, and Dr. Pettit, of Veedersburgh were both called. He had gone to the farm that his father had given him to stay all night. A Mr. Isley lived there, and had the farm rented. I was telegraphed for, and went to Rankin that night and stayed, and left the next morning at four o'clock. I got there at noon, and found him very sick.
I dispatched for Charley, and he got there Thursday, and Thursday I sent for Samuel, and he got there Friday, and all the rest came Saturday, and Sunday about eleven o'clock the suffering was all over with him. He was conscious to the last, and had been all through his sickness and what a consolation it was to hear him tell all about every arrangement that he wanted made, and about the place he wanted his remains laid to rest. He wanted the Rev. Mushgrove sent for. He was pastor of the church at Danville at that time, and he came. He put his arms around Mr. Mushgrove's neck and talked to him so much. The consolation there was in all this. His life was ended February 29, 1880.
This year there were two grandsons born in the family. A son to W. T. and Fanny Patton, the 5th of July, 1880, and was another addition to the name of Patton, and he was named David. On the 8th of August, 1880, a son was born to J. W. Flagg and Martha I. Flagg, and he was David Ross Flagg. He ought to be true to his country if his name has anything to do with it.
September 28, 1880, La Fayette Patton and Ella McHenry Were married; another one less to sit at the table, and one more towards the bottom of the hill when all will be gone. They were married at Sparta, Illinois. None of our family at the wedding only Charley Patton.
This year, April 19, 1883, there was a boy came to live with W. T. and Fanny Patton, and they named him Charley. A large fat baby, and he is that way now, only he is not a baby. In September of this year, little Freddie died. On October 6th of this year. Alfred Rav Patton was born to La Fayette and Ella Patton, and now he is six feet tall.
1885. February of this year saw one of the family leave the home of her childhood for the protection of another. Ida J. Patton and Charles Agustus Lamb were married, and one less on the side of the hill and one less in the home. Oh how sad we feel sometimes, when one by one they leave the home! But such is life. They were married February 12, 1885.
September 28, 1885, another son born to J. W. Flagg and Martha I. Flagg, and they named him Willie, and that is all the name he has yet, poor boy!
Well, things went along as usual, but all these years I always attended church, and enjoyed going to church more than anything else, and teaching little boys in Sabbath school. The weeks were not so long when I got to go to church on the Sabbath day.
On December 13, 1885, there was born to Ida J. Lamb and C. A. Lamb a sweet little Iamb for them to feed and care for, and they named her Nellie, and that is her name yet, and she is larger than her mother now.
The 3d of February, 1886, I went to Indiana for my brother's birthday. I thought he had lived sixty years and I wanted to eat dinner with him that day. I went without any announcement of my coming, and surprised him a little perhaps. It was the 4th of February, but the next time they expected me to be there, and the event is celebrated yet at that home.
This year on August 11th, a little girl made its appearance at W. T. and Fanny Patton's, and claimed admittance as one of the family, and they adopted her and called her Carrie Patton.
October 18, 1888, there came to Billy and Fanny, a little girl, and they called her Elsie. She is not very large yet, but the baby of the family is almost always babied too much for their own good.
This April, Grace Kirkley came to our house to board and teach school at the Sugar Grove schoolhouse, and afterward changed her name to Patton.
What a trial to give up the last girl of the family! All say, "Now what will you do?" "Who will you live with now?" "Will you move to town?" All had some advice to give as to what would be the best thing to do. Well, I did just as I had been doing. Stayed in the old home, which was home to me still. I always loved my home better than I did any place else, but I have to depend on other people's children to help me make it a home for myself, and the different ones that have stayed with me in these years have all been good to me, and I have had a good home with the different ones. I have tried to make a home for them, for some of them did not have any home but my home, but how well have I succeeded? I do not know what they say about it, but I hope that I did not do anything wrong about the way I treated them.
Mary Allie Patton and David Henry Cade were married June 7, 1894, and went to Chicago the same evening, and came back to visit his folks at Peresville, Indiana, and soon after went to housekeeping in Potomac, Illinois.
Illinois in 1854, and some of the changes in the country since that time, and the neighborhood in which I have lived since that time.
It was not a barren waste; it was a bleak cold place in the winter time. The snow went the way the wind took it as far as it wanted to go, and the tumbleweeds also; but in the summer time it was all grass and flowers, and you could see as far as the strength of your eyes would let you see, and the tall grass, when the wind blew, was like the waves of the sea, beautiful to behold. If you knew where you wanted to go you had nothing to do but to start out and go, but look out for the ponds of water or you would be right in one if you did not, for the grass in the ponds would be higher than your head, and it would be lots more trouble to get out than to get into a pond. They were just like getting into trouble about other things, it was easier to get in than to get out. Now you have the hedge fence and the straight roads and the square corners and the groves, and you can't see a wagon five miles on the prairie as you could then.
When we came to this county it was Vermilion county. That was in November 2, 1854. It was a lonely place a little farther out on the prairie than our neighbors were at that time, for the people that were here wanted to live close to the timber. The wolves would howl and make the nights seem lonely.
Our neighbors at that time were Mr. Thomas Lions. He lived at what was called Sugar Grove, and which still has that name. Their house was just west of the Patton Cemetery, in the corner close to the timber; the old house was there until about five years ago. Mr. Lions died in Paxton.
Mr. Vannata lived on what is called the Lamb farm. Mr. Pliny Lamb bought the farm of Vannata in 1856, and died there in 1858. Mr. David Morehouse lived where Joseph Kerr lives now; Mrs. Morehouse died in 1858, and Mr. Morehouse married again and moved away from the country.
Eastidge Daniels lived on the land that La Fayette Patton lives on at this time; he sold the land to David Patton, and moved close to Danville, Illinois, and died there; Elisha Daniels lived on the farm that William Moudy owns at this time, and he died there in 1858, loved and respected by all who knew him.
Mr. John Dopps lived between where the two churches now stand, just where the house is that Mr. Daniel Moudy owns at this time, and that was the place where we went to church at that time, and we still go there. Uncle John Dopps, as we all called him, could sing and shout and praise God every Sunday in the year. The circuit preacher came every three weeks at that time. One daughter died while they lived there, but Mr. Dopps sold out and went West, and how we missed him. Then we had preaching in the Flagg schoolhouse until we built the church in 1868.
A. Mr. Turner lived just west of where the brick church is, but soon left the country. Mr. Matthew Elliott lived close to where Roy Elliott, a grandson, lives, and he lived and died on that farm. His life was always for the right, and he was never absent from church when it was possible for him to be there. One son, W. H. H. Elliott, still lives, and the old home is still dear to him; two daughters live at Catlin, Illinois, a Mrs. Boggus and a Mrs. Wilson.
Mr. David Robison lived where I now live, in a log house. William Robison lived south and a little east of our house. There is no house there now. His wife died there the next June, 1855. She was a good woman, and left one little boy; she came to our house the first Sunday after we came to this Illinois home, and helped me get dinner. There were five men helped us move here. We got here Thursday evening, and all stayed over Sunday. I was pleased to have her come to visit us so soon, but she was soon taken away from us. William Robison got married again, and went west.
Mr. Harmon Strayer and his brother lived on the farm now owned by Mrs. Grace Culbertson, but Harmon Strayer sold it to Mr. John Wilson, and then bought land northwest of here and improved it. His father, Mr. Jacob Strayer, lived south of where Harmon Strayer lived, and Milton Strayer lived half a mile east of his father. There was a father and five sons, all passed from earth — all good, peaceable men.
Hiram Driskel lived south of Sugar Grove. He died several years ago, but has two sons living, George and Ephraim. Mr. Jesse Piles lived on what is known as the old Piles farm. He came to what is now Butler township in March, 1853, and was the first settler in what is now Butler township, and lived on the same farm until his death, July 4, 1884.
When we went to Indiana, we went past the Piles home, and that was the last house but one between Sugar Grove and Marysville, now Potomac. There was one house, but I cannot locate the place. A man by the name of Medsker lived there. You could not stop and ask, ''Is this the right road?" or "How far is it to Marysville?" at that time, for there was no one to ask, and the road paid no attention to section lines then.
Everything for our house and stable was hauled along that road. Mr. Patton started at three o'clock one morning to go to Marysville to get nails to build our stable. Our flour and everything we used was hauled from Covington, Indiana, or some place along the road, and the country mills.
There was not a railroad in Danville at that time, but the Illinois Central was running trains. They had commenced in the spring of 1854, and the company that built the road got every other section of land on either side of the road for ten miles, and some places farther, but there was only one house at Paxton at that time, and the company has never been willing or able, after fifty years, to build a decent depot to accommodate the traveling public.
In a year or two great changes took place in this country; the land was all taken up, and that that had been bought for one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre and up was sold for five or six dollars per acre, and has increased in value ever since, and the improvements have kept pace with the value of the land.
Then we put bells on our horses and cows, so we could tell where they were on foggy mornings, but now the bells are in the churches and on the railroads.
Extracted 14 Oct 2016 by Norma Hass from History of Ford County, Illinois, Volume 1, pages 134-161
