Crawford-Clark County IL Archives History - Books .....Preface And Chapter I 1883
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Book Title: HISTORY OF CRAWFORD AND CLARK COUNTIES, ILLINOIS

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD AND CLARK COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
EDITED BY WILLIAM HENRY PERRIN.

ILLUSTRATED

CHICAGO: O. L. BASKIN & CO., HISTORICAL PUBLISHERS,
LAKESIDE BUILDING.
1883.

PART I.
HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

CHAPTER I.
By W. H. Perrin.

INTRODUCTORY-DESCRIPTIVE—BOUNDARIES AND TOPOGRAPHY—THE SCIENCE OF GEOLOGY—ITS
INFLUENCE ON AGRICULTURE AND CIVILIZATION—GEOLOGY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY—THE COAL
MEASURES—OUTCROPS OF COAL—BUILDING STONE—ITS QUALITY AND DURABILITY—IRON
ORE—SOILS, TIMBER, ETC., ETC.


   "If the events of the past are buried in the waste of ages, there are no
landmarks by which to trace the track of time, and no means of understanding the
influences which have molded human destiny."— Dickey.

THE earliest records of humanity are found in the Sacred Scriptures, and for
that reason have a strong claim on our diligent study. Next to inspired history,
our own town, our own county, our own State, and our own common country, and the
deeds of our forefathers, who first settled and improved the land we call our
own, should receive our notice. The history of our age and our locality comes
home to us personally. Commonplace as it may seem to us now, in the ages to come
it will help to make up a whole; increasing in interest as time reels off the
centuries, one after another. It is the actions and deeds of the citizen which
speak through some representative whose talent for becoming their advocate has
given him a fame justly to be shared by his cotemporaries, and of these, county
history is to speak. They constitute the delicate tracery and details of the
historic landscape destined some day to be as grand as it is distant. Just as
the setting sun bathes every object he leaves behind with a fresher beauty, and
more attractive interest, so inscribing upon the historic page glowing views of
past scenes, affords a richer enjoyment than when those scenes were enacted.
This power of reproduction compensates for the flight of time and the decay of
the physical powers. In the annals of a community, fathers being dead, yet
speak, and the old man still living loves to rehearse the scenes of his early
days. To preserve from oblivion the scenes and the facts and incidents which
have transpired in this section of the country, is the object of this volume.

   Not long ago, comparatively, as to the world's chronology, this vast domain,
which Columbus promised to give to his king, was an unbroken wilderness, the
undisputed home and hunting-ground of savage men. Of this promised land Crawford
County comprises but a small and insignificant portion, and its history, since
the advent of the pale-face pioneer, is brief and soon told. But there is a page
which comes before this, and like the prologue to a drama should be recited
first. It is a page which treats of a science that traces the history of the
earth back through successive stages of development to its rudimental condition
in a state of fusion. The history of any country properly begins with its
geological formations, for it is upon them that it depends for the pursuits of
its inhabitants and the genius of its civilization. Phases of life and modes of
thought are induced by them, which give to different communities and States
characters as various as the diverse rocks that underlie them. It is no less
true that the moral and intellectual qualities of man depend on material
conditions. For instance, where the soil and subjacent rocks are profuse in the
bestowal of wealth, man is indolent and effeminate; where effort is required to
live he becomes enlightened and virtuous; and when on the sands of the desert
labor is unable to procure the necessaries and comforts of life he lives a savage.

   "Fifty years ago," says a writer on the subject, "no popular belief was more
fixed than that the work of creation was accomplished in six days, (each
occupying twenty-four hours. Geologists, however, in investigating the structure
of the earth, saw that, to account for all the mutations which it has undergone
required the lapse of an indefinite period of time, stretching back so far
remote as to defy computation. To this requirement every intelligent
investigator of this day assents. Geologists now find that the antiquity of man
far antedates the era assigned to his creation by the received system of
chronology, and submits the evidence of their belief to an enlightened public
sentiment. In the silent depths of stratified rocks are the former creations of
plants and animals, and even of human remains, which lived and died during the
slow dragging centuries of their formation. These fossil remains are fragments
of history, which enables the geologist to extend his re-searches far back into
the realms of the past, and not only determine their former modes of life, but
study the cotemporaneous history of their rocky beds, and group them into systems."

   There is an intimate relation existing between the physical geography and the
geological history of every portion of the earth's surface; and in all cases the
topographical features of a country are molded by, and therefore must be, to
some extent at least, a reflection of its geological structure, and the changes
it has undergone from the surface agencies of more modern times. The varied
conditions of mountain and valley, deep gorge and level plain, are not the
results of chance, but on the contrary, are just as much due to the operations
of natural laws, as the rotation of the earth, or the growth and continued
existence of the various species of plants and animals which inhabit its
surface. Moreover, all the varied conditions of the soil and its productive
capacities, which may be observed in different portions even of our own State,
are traceable to causes existing in the geological history of that particular
region, and to the surface agencies which have served to modify the whole, and
prepare the earth for the reception and sustenance of the existing races of
beings.* Hence we see that the geological history of a country determines its
agricultural capacities, and also the amount of population which it may sustain,
and the general avocation of its inhabitants.

*Worthen.

   In the topography and geology of Crawford County, we extract most of our
facts and information from the new geological survey of the State, recently
published, and which does full justice to these subjects. It says: "Crawford
County contains seven full and several fractional townships, making an aggregate
area of about 438 square miles. It is bounded on the north by Clark County, on
the east by the Wabash river, on the south by Lawrence and Richland Counties and
on the west by Jaspar [sic] County. It is located on the western side of the
Wabash river, and is traversed by several small streams tributary thereto. The
surface is generally rolling, and was originally mostly covered with timber, a
large portion of which, however, has been cleared away and the land brought
under cultivation, though there is still remaining an abundance of timber to
supply the present and also the prospective demand for many years. The southwest
portion of the county from the Shaker Mills on the Embarras river, nearly to
Robinson, is quite broken, and there are also belts of broken land of greater or
less extent on all the streams. The principal water-courses in the county
tributary to the Wabash river are the Embarras, which runs diagonally across the
southwestern corner of the county; the North Fork, traversing its western border
from north to south; Crooked Creek, also in the southwest part, and Brushy Fork,
Lamotte Creek, Sugar Creek, Hutson Creek and a few other smaller streams in the
eastern portion of the county. But a small proportion of the land is prairie.  
 The few prairies are generally small, and for the most part rolling, and are
mainly confined to the northern and western portiois of the county, and to the
bottom and terrace lands adjacent to the Wabash river."

   Geology.-"The quarternary beds in Crawford County consist of buff or drab
marly clays belonging to the Loess, which are found capping the bluffs of the
Wabash, and attaining a thickness of ten to twenty feet or more, and from twenty
to forty feet of brown gravelly clays and hard-pan, the latter resting upon the
bed-rock, or separated from it by a thin bed of stratified sand or gravel. If
these beds were found in a vertical section they would show the following order
of succession: Buff and drab marly clays or sand, ten to twenty feet; brown and
yellow gravelly clays, fifteen to twenty feet; bluish-gray hard-pan, ten to
twenty-five feet; sand or gravel three feet. Generally these superficial
deposits are thin, and at most places the bed-rock will be found within fifteen
or twenty feet of the surface. Small bowlders are frequently met with in the
branches, but large ones are quite uncommon, and they are more frequently
derived from the limestone and hard sandstone of the adjacent coal measure beds
than from the metamorphic rocks beyond the confines of the State, though some of
the latter may be seen.

   Coal Measures.—"The stratified rocks of this county all belong to the upper
coal measures, the lowest beds appearing in the beds of the Wabash river and the
highest along the western borders of the county, and include the horizon of
coals Nos. 11,12 and 13 of the Illinois Section. The only knowledge that we have
of the underlying formations is derived from a shaft, and boring made at
Palestine Landing. The shaft was sunk to reach a coal seam reported in a boring
previously made to be four feet thick, and at a depth of 123 feet. The bore was
made about a mile and a half northwest of the shaft, and commenced fifteen feet
below a thin coal which outcrops in the hill above. It was made for oil, during
the oil fever, and no great reliance can be placed in the reported thickness or
character of the strata penetrated. The shaft was sunk to the horizon of a coal
seam reported four feet thick in the bore, but on reaching it in the shaft it
proved to be two feet of bituminous shale and six inches of coal. If any
reliance can be placed on the reported section of this boring, it must have
passed through coals Nos. 10, 9 and 8 of the general section of the Illinois
Coal Measures, and it is noticeable that in the shaft sunk at the landing, they
found two thin beds of limestone over the coal at the bottom of the shaft, coal
No. 9, showing that although this limestone has thinned out very much from what
its outcrop shows in Clark County, it has, nevertheless, not quite disappeared.
This coal was reported in the boring at four feet, without any recognition of
the bituminous shale above it, while in the shaft that was sunk down to this
horizon in the anticipation of finding a good seam of coal, the bituminous shale
proved to be two feet thick and the coal only six inches. The rotten coal No. 27
in the section heretofore referred to, probably represents coal No. 8, which in
Gallatin County is from 50 to 75 feet above No. 7, though no trace of the latter
was reported in the bore. The coals intervening between Nos. 8 and 15 are seldom
found of sufficient thickness to be worked to advantage except when it can be
done by stripping along their outcrops, and here they are of but little value as
a resource for fuel. In the western portion of the county but little coal has
been found, and only in a single mine, hereafter to be mentioned, has there
beemany attempt to mine for c al in a systematic way. The exposure in the bluffs
just below Palestine Landing show the following beds: No. 1, covered slope of
Loess and Drift, fifteen to twenty feet; No. 2, shelly brown limestone, with
fossils, two feet; No. 3. bituminous shale and thin coal, No. 12, one to two
feet; No. 4, sand shales and sandstone, forty-five to fifty feet: No. 5, bitum
nous shale, with numerous fossils, two to three feet; No. 6, coal No. 11; No. 7,
hard, dark gray bituminous limestone, two to three feet; No. 8, shale, sixteen
to twenty feet. The shelly brown limestone, No. 2 of the foregoing section,
contains numerous fossils among which were recognized Spirifer camratus,
Productus cortatus, P.punctatus, P. pattenianus, P. longispinus, Chonetes
Flemingii, joints and plates of Crinoids, Ordis Pecosi and some undetermined
forms of bryozoa. Further west in the county, and in Lawrence also, No. 12 coal
is overlaid by a buff calcareous shale, in which Orthis Pecosi and Lophophyllum
proliferum are conspicuous.

   "The bituminous shale, No. 5 of the above section was found well exposed at
the bridge on Lamotte Creek, on the road from Palestine to the landing, and the
following group of fossils were obtained from it at this locality:
Pleurotomoria, Aphaeurlata, B. percariuta, P. tabulata, P. Graynlleuris,
Bellerophon carbonauance, etc., corresponding with the beds at Lawrenceville and
Grayville. Numerous bands of carbonate of iron occur in the shales at the base
of the above section, both on Lamotte Creek and in the river bank at Palestine
Landing.

   "Robinson is located on a sandstone deposit overlaying all the rocks found in
the bluffs at Palestine Landing, indicating a decided dip of the strata to the
westward. The outcrops of sandstone on the small branch of Sugar Creek, which
drains the section on which the town is built, show from fifteen to twenty feet
in thickness of soft brown rock, in which a few small quarries have been opened.
This portion of the bed affords shales, and thin-bedded, rather soft brown
sandstone, with some thicker beds toward the base of the outcrop, which are
rather inaccessible from the amount of stripping required to reach them, as well
as from the fact that they are partly below the water level in the branch. At
Isaac C. Hole's place, north of Robinson, on the northeast quarter of Section
16, Township 7, Range 12, more extensive quarries have been opened in this
sandstone, and a much greater thickness of strata is exposed. The quarries are
on a branch in the timber, but there is almost a continuous outcrop along the
branch, nearly to the prairie level, showing the following succession of strata:
Shaly sandstone, becoming thicker-bedded and harder toward the bottom, and
containing broken plants, thirty to forty feet; massive brown sandstone, (main
quarry rock) eight to ten feet; ferruginous pebbly bed, three feet. The massive
brown sandstone quarried here is locally concretionary, the concretions being*
much harder than other portions of the bed, and afford a very durable stone.
This sandstone, with the shales usually associated with it, probably attains a
maximum thickness of sixty to eighty feet, and fills the intervening space
between coals Nos. 12 and 13 of the general section. It has been penetrated in
sinking wells on the prairie in many places north and northwest of Robinson.
Law's coal bank, formerly known as Eaton's bank, is on the southwest part of the
northeast quarter of section 12, township 7, range 13. The coal is a double
seam, about three feet thick, with a parting of bituminous shale from two or
three inches to two feet in thickness. It is overlaid here by shale and a hard,
dark, ash-gray limestone, destitute of fossils. One mile up the creek from this
mine the coal is said to pass into a bituminous shale. The coal obtained here is
rather soft, and subject to a good deal of waste in mining; but as the mine was
not in operation there was no opportunity of judging of its average quality. A
section of the creek bluff at the mine shows the following order: Gravelly clays
of the drift, ten to fifteen feet; hard, dark, ash-gray limestone, one to one
and a half feet; hard, siliceous shales, with nodules, half a foot; coal, with
shale parting, three feet. A boring was made here by the proprietor, and a
thicker seam was reported to have been found some forty feet below; but if this
report is correct, the sandstone usually intervening between coals Nos. 12 and
13 is here much below its average thickness, and no such coal is known to
outcrop in the county. However, local coals are sometimes developed which only
cover very limited areas, and this may be a case of that kind.

   "Four miles southwest of Robinson, a bed of hard, dark-gray bituminous
limestone outcrops in the bed of Turkey Creek, and has been quarried for
building stone, for which purpose it is but poorly adapted, as it splits to
fragments after a limited exposure to the elements. The rock occurs in a single
stratum about eighteen inches thick, overlaid by a brown calcareous shale,
filled with nodules of argillaceous limestone. The shale contained numerous
specimens of Lophophyllum proliferum, associated with joints Lennoidea. The
foundation stone for the court house at Robinson was obtained here. This
limestone may overlay a thin coal, but it could not be learned that any seam had
been found in this vicinity. In the western portion of the county outcrops are
rare, and so widely separated that no continuous section could be made.

   "On section 4, in Hutsonville township, at W. D. Lamb's place, a bed of
limestone is found underlaid by five or six feet of blue shale and a thin coal.
In a well sunk here the limestone was found to be five feet in thickness, a
tough, fine grained, dark-grayish rock, containing no well preserved fossils. On
Mr. Evans' place, just over the line of Clark County, on section 34, township 8,
range 12, heavy masses of limestone are to be seen along the creek valley. It is
a massive, gray, brittle rock, and contains Athyris subtilita, Spirifer
cameratus and Productus longisprinus. A mile and a half further up the creek
this limestone is found in place, and is burned for lime by Mr. Drake. These
limestones belong, probably, below the sandstone, which is found at Robinson and
at Hole's quarry. At Lindley's mil^ on the northwest quarter of section 7,
township 8, and range 13, a hard, dark gray limestone was found in the bed of
the creek, only about two feet in thickness of its upper portion being exposed
above the creek bed. A quarter of a mile south of the mill, at Mr. Reynolds'
place, coal is mined by stripping along the bed of a branch. The coal is from 15
to 18 inches, overlaid by two or three feet of blue shale, and a gray limestone
filled with large Producti, Athyrus subtilita, etc., Productus costatus, with
its long spines, seemed to be the most abundant species. This limestone, and the
underlying coal, it is believed, represents the horizon of the upper coal in the
bluff at Palestine landing, and No. 12 of the general section.

   "At Martin's mill on Brushy Fork, near the south line of the county, the
limestone and shale found at the Lamotte Creek bridge, and also at
Lawrenceville, representing the horizon of coal No. 11, is well exposed. The
upper bed is there about a quarter of a mile from the creek, and at a somewhat
higher level apparently, than the sandstone, No. 2 forming the top of the bluff;
but the intervening space could not be more than ten to fifteen feet. Pockets of
coal were found here in the concretionary sandstone; but although dug into for
coal, they proved to be of very limited extent. The micaceous sandstone No. 3 of
the section, affords some very good building stone, and some of the thin layers
are distinctly ripple-marked. The calcareous shale afforded numerous fossils of
the same species found at the Lamotte Creek bridge.

   "At Mr. Nettles' place, on the northeast quarter of section 24, township 5,
range 12, coal has been mined for several vears. The coal is about eighteen
inches thick and has a roof of fine black slate, resembling cannel coal, nearly
as thick as the coal itself. The black slate is overlaid by two or three feet of
calcareous shale, containing Orthis Pecosi, Retzia Mormoni, and joints and
plates of Lennoidea. This coal is probably the same as that near the top of the
hill at Palestine landing, and No. 12 of the Illinois section. Prof. Cox reports
the following outcrop in the county: In the hill east of the Shaker mill,
section 32, township 5 and range 12, a soft yellowish massive sandstone, forming
cliffs along the ravines, and in places wethering into rock houses, or over-like
cavities. Section here is as follows: soft and covered space, five feet; flaggy
sandstone in two to eight inch layers, eight feet; solid-bedded sandstone,
thirteen feet. Sandy shales, flagstones and an occasional showing of massive
soft sand-stone, form the prominent geological features of the southern and
western portions of the county. Around Hebron, four miles south of Robinson,
massive sandstone forms cliffs fifteen to twenty feet high, probably a
continuation of the rocks seen at the Shaker mill. Two miles and a half
southeast of Bellair is the following section, at Goodin's coal bank: Slope of
the hill, twenty feet; hard blue argillaceous shale, ten feet; coal breaks in
small fragments, one to one and a half feet. This mine is worked by a shaft. A
quarter of a mile below, on Willow Creek, the same seam is worked on Mr.
Matheney's place by stripping, where the coal is of the same thickness. This
coal must be as high in the series as No. 13 or 14 of the general section and
may be the coal mined near Newton and New Liberty, in Jasper County.

   Coal.—"As stated in a preceding page, all the stratified rocks in the county,
belong to the upper coal measures, extending from coals No. 11 to 14 inclusive;
and as these seams are usually too thin to be worked in a regular way, no
valuable deposit of coal is likely to be found outcropping at the surface in the
county. The seam at Mr. Law's place northeast of Robinson, is said to attain a
local thickness of three feet, and may be successfully mined, when the coal is
good. When the demand for coal shall be such as to justify deep mining, the
lower coals may be reached at a depth of from four to six hundred feet. Their
nearest approach to the surface is along the valley of the Wabash river, and the
depth would be increased to the westward by the dip of the strata and the
elevation of the surface.

  Building Stone.—"The best building stone to be found in the county comes from
the heavy bed of sandstone above coal No. 12, which outcrops at various places
in the county, and especially at Mr. Hole's quarries, north of Robinson. At some
locations, a fair article of thin bedded micaceous sandstone is found between
coals 11 and 12, as at Martin's mill, on Brushy Fork, near the south line of the
county. These sandstones afford a cheap and durable material for foundation
walls, bridge abutments, etc. The limestone four miles west of Robinson, that
was used in the foundation walls of the court house, is liable to split when
exposed to the action of frost and water; and although seeming hard and solid,
when freshly quarried, will not withstand exposure as well as the sandstone, if
the latter is carefully selected. The limestone at Reynolds' coal bank, near
Lindley's mill, stands exposure well, and will afford a durable building stone.

   Iron Ore.—"The shales associated with coal No. 11 usually contain more or
less carbonate of iron, and at the locality below the bridge on Lamotte Creek,
near Palestine landing, the quality seemed to be sufficient to justify an
attempt to utilize it. The shale in the bank of the creek shows a perpendicular
face of fifteen to twenty feet, and the bauds of ore toward the bottom of the
bed would afford from twelve to eighteen inches of good ore in a thickness of
about six feet of shale. At the river bank just below the landing, this shale
outcrops again, and the iron nodules are abundant along the river bank, where
they have been washed out of the easily decomposed shale. Good brick clay can be
found in the sub-soil of the uplands, and sand is found both in the Loess
deposits of the river bluffs, and in the beds of the streams."

   Soil and Timber.—From Hutsonville south there is a belt of alluvial bottom
and terrace land, from one to three miles in width, extending to the> mouth of
Lamotte Creek, a distance of about ten miles. This is mostly prairie, and the
soil is a deep, sandy loam, and very productive. The upland prairies have a
chocolate-colored soil, not so rich as the black prairie soils of Central
Illinois, but yielding fair crops of corn, wheat, oats, clover, etc. On the
timbered lands the soil is somewhat variable. Where the surface is broken the
soil is thin, but on the more level portions where the growth is composed in
part of black walnut, sugar tree, linden, hackberry and wild cherry; the soil is
very productive, and yields annually large crops of all the cereals usually
grown in this latitude.

   The varieties of timber observed in this , county are the common species of
oak and hickory, black and white walnut, white and sugar maple, slippery and red
elm, honey locust, linden, hackberry, ash, red birch, cotton-wood, sycamore,
coffeenut, black gum, pecan, persimmon, pawpaw, red thorn, crab apple, wild
plum, sassafras, red bud, dogwood, iron wood, etc., etc.


PREFACE.

THE history of Crawford and Clark Counties, after months of persistent toil and
research, is now completed, and it is believed that no subject of universal
public importance or interest has been omitted, save where protracted effort
failed to secure reliable results. We are well aware of our inability to furnish
a perfect history from meager public documents and numberless conflicting
traditions, but claim to have prepared a work fully up to the standard of our
promises. Through the courtesy and assistance generously afforded by the
residents of these counties, we have been enabled to trace out and put on record
the greater portion of the important events that have transpired in Crawford and
Clark Counties up to the present time. And we feel assured that all thoughtful
people in these counties, raw and in future, will recognize and appreciate the
importance of the work and its permanent value.

    A dry statement of facts has, as far as possible, been avoided, and
incidents and anecdotes have been woven in with facts and statistics, forming a
narrative at once instructive and interesting.

    We are indebted to Hon. E. Callahan for the chapter on the "Bench and Bar"
of Crawford County; to Greorge W. Harper, Esq., for a sketch of "the press" and
to Hon. W. C. Wilson for valuable and important historical data; also to
Hamilton Sutton, Esq., for his very able general history of Clark County; to H.
C. Bradsby, Esq., for the chapter on the "Bench and Bar" of Clark, and to many
other citizens of both counties for material aid to our historians in making the
proper compilation of facts embodied in the work.
    April, 1883.                         THE PUBLISHERS.


Additional Comments:
Extracted From:

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD AND CLARK COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
EDITED BY WILLIAM HENRY PERRIN.

ILLUSTRATED

CHICAGO: O. L. BASKIN & CO., HISTORICAL PUBLISHERS,
LAKESIDE BUILDING.
1883.


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