Clark County IL Archives History - Books .....Chapter II - Early History 1907
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Book Title: Historical Encyclopedia Of Illinois And History Of Clark County

CHAPTER II.

EARLY HISTORY-FORMATION OF COUNTY-LOCATION OF COUNTY SEATS-COURT HOUSES. ETC.

   By an act of the Legislature passed in 1819, Clark County was created out of
the largeness of Crawford County's extended territory. At that time Crawford
County embraced an enormous territory, including all of Eastern Illinois, and
reaching as far north as the Canadian line, and as far west as Fayette County.
At her organization Clark County was much larger than it is now. In 1821,
Fayette County was formed partly from Crawford and Clark Counties. In 1823,
Edgar County was formed from territory wholly belonging to Clark County, and in
1830, Coles County was formed from territory belonging to Clark and Edgar
Counties. By the forming of Coles County, Clark County was reduced to the
dimensions contemplated in the original act. But at the session of the
Legislature of 1823, William Lowry, the Representative for Clark and Crawford
Counties, had secured the passage of an act, at the urgent solicitation of the
people of Edgar County, adding to that county three miles off the north end of
Clark county, because Paris was in danger of losing the county seat, for the
reason that it was not so centrally located as other points in the county which
wanted and were liable to seek to secure the county seat. By adding thre miles
more territory to the south boundary of Edgar County, the position of Paris
became so centrally located that she felt safe in her position as the county
seat of Edgar County, and she has held it to this day, and doubtless always
will. So Clark County's loss was the gain of Paris, and, also, of Edgar County,
for the city of Paris, the present county seat of Edgar County, is the just
pride, not only of the people of Paris and Edgar County, but of the people of
eastern Illionis as well. vBy this act of the Legislature, Smith Shaw, Thomas
Gill and James Watts, were named as Commissioners, and they were also directed
by this act to meet at the house of Charles Neeley, of Walnut Prairie, on the
first and second Mondays of May, 1819, to take an oath before some Justice of
the Peace for the faithful discharge of their duties; and then to proceed to
take into consideration the situation of the settlements, the geography of the
county, and to establish the permanent County Seat of the infant county. This
act also provided that until the County Commissioners, to be thereafter elected,
should direct, the courts and elections of the county should be held at the
house of Charles Neeley, in said county. This act also provided that the
citizens of Clark County should be entitled to vote with those of Crawford
County for Senators and Representatives in the State Legislature. It also
provided that the county of Clark should form a part of the second judicial
district, and that the courts therein should be held at such time and places as
shall be directed in the act defining the duties of the Justice of the Supreme
Court of Illinois. This act also gave the County Commissioners the power to lay
out the lands selected as the future county seat of Clark County into town lots,
and to sell same at such prices as they might deem proper, and to apply the
proceeds to the construction of public buildings for the county. In order to
remove all difficulties concerning any future division of Clark County, it was
further provided in this act, that all that tract of country lying north of an
east and west line dividing townships numbered twelve and thirteen north, should
be the line between the county of Clark and any county which might be laid off
north of same, but that until such county was established, all that part of
Clark County lying north of the last mentioned line shall remain and be
considered a part of said Clark County. This act was approved March 22, 1819,
and was to be in effect from and after its passage. The county was named Clark,
in this act, in honor of General George Rogers Clark, an officer of the
Revolutionary War, born in Albemarle County, Virginia, November 19, 1752, and
who died in Louisville, Kentucky, February 18, 1818, the year Illinois was
admitted into the Union, and one year before Clark County was prescribed and
christened with his honored name. Clark was the fifteenth county to be
established in the newly made State of Illinois. On Monday, - April 26, 1819,
the first election ever held in Clark County, so far as any records show, was
held at the house of Charles Neeley, on Walnut Prairie, as had been provided in
the act establishing Clark County, and Joseph Shaw, John Chenoweth and Samuel
Ashmore, were elected as the first County Commissioners for the new county of
Clark. On the 7th of June, 1819, these thus highly honored and immortalized
first County Commissioners of Clark County, held their first meeting at the
house of Charles Neeley, and proceeded to appoint William B. Archer Clerk and
William Lockard, Treasurer of Clark County. No better men could have been
selected for these offices at that time in Clark County, or in any other county,
before or since. They both were ideal men for the respective positions they were
given. Smith Shaw, Thomas Gill and James Watts, the Commissioners appointed by
the act of the Legislature to select a county seat for Clark County, were on
hands, and promptly submitted their report. They reported that they had selected
as the future county seat a tract of land, about two hundred and two acres in
extent, lying on the west bank of the Wabash River, and about two miles north of
the present town of Darwin. They reported that the land had been donated by
Chester Fitch, John Chenoweth and John McClure. In some way Chenoweth and
McClure seem to have disposed of their county seat lands to Fitch, and then
Fitch donated the whole two hundred and two acres to the county for county seat
purposes, unless the share of Fitch that was donated to the county happened to
be the ground covered by the actually proposed town and public buildings site
for the new seat of justice, for the State Commissioners reported, their report
being dated May 6,1819, that "Fitch is to be at one-half of the expense in
mapping and surveying the county seat, and is to have every alternate lot in the
whole town for himself and his heirs forever." This report the County
Commissioners approved and they also gave to the newly proposed, and thus
definitely established seat of justice for the new county of Clark the name of
Aurora. From this name came the name of the bend in the Wabash River two miles
north of Darwin, which since that time has been known as "Aurora Bend." On the
7th of June, 1819, when the County Commissioners approved the report of the
State Commissioners and named the first county seat for Clark County Aurora,
they named the first seat of justice of the county larger than the whole State
of Connecticut. The county then had about nine-hundred inhabitants, while at the
National Census of 1900, the number had been increased to twenty-four thousand
and thirty-three, and in 1907 doubtless has more than twenty-five thousand. It
was under the auspices of such intelligent, brave and noble men as John
Chenoweth, Joseph Shaw and Samuel Ash-more, as County Commissioners, William B.
Archer, as County Clerk, William Lockard, as County Treasurer, and Smith Shaw,
Thomas Gill and James Watts, as State Commissioners, that the infant county
started as an integral part of what has since grown to be one of the foremost
States in the mightiest republic of either ancient, middle or modern times. What
joy must gleam in the spirit eyes, and what satisfaction and pride must glow in
the spirit bosoms of these noble men as one of the very greatest States, in
absolutely the greatest nation the world has ever known. When Aurora received
its name in 1819 there was not a single town, village, or even trading post in
the whole extended territory of Clark County, while Clark County now has not
only the cities of Marshall, Casey and Martinsville, but also the towns,
villages, trading points and postoffices of Westfield, West Union, York, Darwin,
Melrose, Walnut Prairie, Ernst, Snyder, Orange, Moonshine, Neadmore, Auburn, Mt.
Moriah, Livingston, McKeen, Dennison, State Line, Clarkesville, Doyles, Oak
Point, Cleon, Castle Finn, Wells, Allright and perhaps others, twenty-eight in
all. In fact in 1819 Clark County was a veritable wilderness, over whose
extended prairies, and dense, unbroken forests of oak, hickory, elm, poplar,
walnut, Cottonwood, beech, ash, maple, sugar tree and interminable swamp lands,
the wild deer, wild turkey, panther, bear, raccoon, opossum, wild cat, squirrel,
quail, pheasant, and other wild animals and wild fowl roamed and fought and
fluttered and screamed, with practically no one to disturb or make them afraid.
None but the bow and arrow of the red Indian, and the occasional crack of the
old flintlock rifle of the few white settlers, or of the Red man lucky enough to
possess one, ever disturbed the repose of these denizens of the frontier. But
upon the rifle of the fathers and sons of those early days in Clark County, were
those early settlers and their families dependent for regular meat food, and
often for the means to replenish their ammunition and get clothing and other
absolute necessaries of life for themselves and their families. But, for all
this, they were given and taken in marriage, had their dances, parties, quilting
parties, apple cuttings, log rollings, corn huskings, house raisings, shooting
matches, foot races, wolf hunts, fox chases, singing schools, spelling bees, and
other diversions, usual and popular in those early days of Clark County, and
were doubtless as happy and contented, perhaps more so, then than the average
run of people in Clark County are today. Looking back to the boyhood days of the
writer, it does seem to him, in all sincerity, that the people of the then
comparative, recent times, got, upon the whole, more real, genuine satisfaction,
and less worry and troubles out of life than they do upon the whole now; and he
has no doubt the inhabitants of Clark County in the years between 1818 and 1849,
when the writer was born, did the same; and especially so, seeing that happiness
comes from within and not from without, and from a clear conscience and good
digestion, rather than from any merely material and financial surroundings. The
writer states it as a truism, that a young man and his lady love, in those early
days, could probably enjoy themselves quite as well, and get as much genuine
pleasure out of their courtships, for instance, astride a horse with the
aforesaid lady love sitting sidewise behind him on the same horse, with her dear
arms around him, with the sweet tones of her entrancing voice breaking like
divine music in his ears, and her soft, warm breath, fanning his cheek, as they
trotted along over the open prairies and through the dense wood lands of Clark
County, in that early day, as they could possibly experience today, squeezed up
in a twenty-six inch buggy, and spinning along at a three minute gait, over the
smooth roads and the thickly populated neighborhoods of Clark County. So let the
reader not get the idea that because the early settlers of Clark County were
utter strangers to many, in fact nearly all, of what are now regarded as the
absolute necessaries of modern life, that, therefore, and for these reasons,
they were necessarily unhappy and discontented. They were just as happy then,
perhaps happier, and had more real pleasure, and less of the vexations of life,
perhaps, than they have now.

   On July 17, 1821, Joseph Shaw and John Chenoweth, two of the County
Commissioners of Clark County, met at Aurora to stake off the new county seat,
and designate the main street and Public Square. No court house was ever built
at Aurora, but the county seems to have utilized a log house, about 12 by 15
feet, for that purpose. In after years, when the short-lived glory of Aurora had
forever departed, this rude first court house of Clark County was made to
preform the humble but useful duty of a corn crib for John Stockwell. Not a
vestige of Aurora, nor of Clark County's first court house now remain, and it is
doubtful if any living man or woman can tell with anything like certainty, the
exact spot where this court house stood or even to within rods of it.

   If the old court house of Aurora and of Darwin had been preserved, as they
could have been, had anyone thought of preserving them,' and had they been
removed to Marshall and put up here and preserved as they were when they did
duty as seats of justice at Aurora and Darwin, they would now be objects of
genuine and pleasant curiosity, and would doubtless support some man and his
family from contributions paid by those who desire to see and examine them. But
no one ever thought of preserving them, and they have now decayed, crumbled to
dust, passed away, to be seen no more, and their very existence to those now
living is only a sweet, sad memory, and who know of them only from their vague
and uncertain history, and the few who yet remember them, at least the one at
Darwin, which was used until comparative recent years, as a stable for
quadrupeds, and which many yet living in the county remember to have seen in
that capacity at Darwin. The first town lot sold under the provision of the act
of March 22, 1819, was at a public sale of lots at the new county seat at
Aurora, August 5, 1819, and a man by the name of Dr. Septer Patrick bought it
for twenty dollars. Thirty-seven lots were sold on that day, and at prices per
lot of from twenty to three hundred dollars. Three hundred dollars was an
enormous price to pay for lots in the bare town site of Aurora, in the wilds of
Aurora Bend, in that early day. Measured by conditions and prices of today, land
was then practically valueless, and could be had for practically nothing, and a
lot in Marshall, valued at thousands, would be cheap by the side of a lot in
Aurora in 1819, at three hundred dollars. Money was scarce, tranportation, by
the Wabash River, roads and bridges there were none, and land was wonderfully
cheap, and hence three hundred dollars seems an extravagant price to pay for a
town lot in Aurora; but it showed the confidence in the importance and future
growth, and the fond hopes of its permanence as the seat of justice of Clark
County, as nothing else could show. A jail, the invariable concomitant of
civilization and order, was built at Aurora. It was twelve by eighteen feet,
built of round logs, and two stories in height. In those good old days men and
women were imprisoned for debt whenever their creditors demanded it, and for
such length of time as they were willing to pay the Sheriff of county for
feeding and rooming them, and so the jail was built two stories in height, the
upper story being set apart for the infamous purpose of confining therein those
too poor to pay their debts, and in this upper story, the poor victims of a
barbarous law were confined. There were two grated windows to this debtor's
prison, one on each side of the house, and the entrance was by means of a rude
stair from the outside.

   There was no connection between the debtor's prison up stairs and the jail
for other prisoners below. From the windows of this debtor's prison, the
unfortunate prisoners could gaze out upon the streets, or single street of
Aurora, and out on the placid waters of the Wabash rippling on freely and
sweetly to the Ohio and the Gulf, at the passers by or in the boats of this
beautiful stream, while through the minds of those who looked up and saw their
sad faces, doubtless often murmured the sentiments, if not the words, of the poet:

What has the grey-haired prisoner done? 
Has murder stained his hands with gore?
Not so, his is a fouler crime,
God made the old man poor.

   An estray pen was likewise built at Aurora, thirty-six feet square and six
feet high. When court met any of the animals confined in the estray pen, that
were not demanded and proved in open court, were put up and sold to the highest
bidder, and if they did not fetch the cost of taking up, feeding and caring for
them, they were knocked off to the person who found them and put them there, and
they thenceforth became his property.

   Our first county seat was also provided with a whipping post. This consisted
of a substantial log of wood about twelve inches in diameter, with the bark
peeled off so as to make it smooth, cool and nice to the touch of the bare arms
and breast of the prospective victim of castigation, and to make the post firm
and solid, it was placed in an upright position, with one end sunk three feet in
the earth. The victim of this early species of legal torture, discipline and
reformation was first stripped naked to his waist, his hands securely tied
together around the post, and the lashes laid vigorously on his bare shoulders
and loins. So far as the record shows only one person was ever publicly whipped
at Aurora, a fellow by the name of Whitely, who had stolen hogs, a very heinous
offense which ranked next to horse stealing, in those days. Aurora possessed a
good river landing, and practically all of its first trading was done at
Vincennes, Indiana, about fifty miles down the Wabash River. It was to
Vincennes, and afterwards to Terre Haute, that the early settlers at Aurora and
Darwin journeyed with ox teams or by boat to lay in their supply of ammunition
stores, and general necessities. The Wabash River was much larger than at
present, and it was also comparatively free from logs, drift, sand bars,
shallows, and general obstructions, so common today and which now render it
navigable only for boats of the shallowest draft, and then only for a few months
in the year. This condition of the Wabash has been produced, largely, by the
denudation of the land along its shores and back into the country on both sides,
the timber which causes evaporation to go on more swiftly. The extensive tiling
and ditching for long distances on both the Indiana and Illinois sides has
caused the lands to drain rapidly into the river, thus creating in the formerly
beautiful and useful stream rapid rises and falls, which seriously impair its
navigability. But this loss to the people living along its shores has not been
without compensation, for in place of traveling and shipping, they have the rich
fish and pearl commerce that has grown up from its sand bars, mussel shoals, and
placid depths. Hundreds of people make a good living from fish, with which the
river is plentifully supplied, while for the past few years, thousands have been
engaged in the profitable employment of extracting pearls of great beauty and
large aggregate value from mussels found in great, but diminishing quantities.
Pearls have been found ranging in selling prices from a few to eighteen hundred
dollars each, and perhaps more than a million dollars in cash has already been
received by the pearl fishers of the Wabash River. This sestimate does not
include the amounts realized from the "slugs" taken from mussel shells, and
which readily bring from two to two dollars and fifty cents per ounce; or the
mussel shells themselves, which are disposed of to pearl button factories at
Vincennes, Indiana, and elsewhere, for from six to eight dollars a ton.

   Thus has the Wabash its present usefulness, as well as its splendid memories,
and York, which but a short time ago was a slumbering river town, still is vital
in the minds of those who recall its ten stores, its packing house, mills, wagon
shops, beautiful homes, and river boats moored at the landings. But the greatest
calamity that has ever befallen York fell upon her suddenly on Friday evening,
June 7, 1907, at about six o'cclock p. m. when a cyclone practically wiped out
the town.


Additional Comments:
HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS
EDITED BY
NEWTON BATEMAN, LL.D.
PAUL SELBY, A. M.

PUBLISHED BY MUNSELL PUBLISHING CO., FOR MIDDLE WEST PUBLISHING CO.

AND HISTORY OF CLARK COUNTY

EDITED BY
HON. H. C. BELL

ILLUSTRATED
CHICAGO
MIDDLE WEST PUBLISHING CO.
PUBLISHERS
1907

Entered according to act of Congress in the years 1894, 1899, 1900, and 1905 by
WILLIAM W. MUNSELL
in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington


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