Fulton county Illinois, newspaper - A Rambler’s Notes January 3, 1907 WEEKLY REGISTER: CANTON, ILLINOIS January 3, 1907 ==================================================================== Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: © Donald E. Tharp ==================================================================== A RAMBLER'S NOTES In 1825 Mathew Tatum, then unmarried, with two companions, Squire Wilcoxen and Landrine Eggers, left Indiana for Illinois. When the little party reached Fulton county they found a wild country with but few white settlers, but Eggers and Wilcoxen after exploring the county, found suitable locations, erected cabins and became pioneers in the wilderness. Game then was the principal food and the red men had not left the country. Young Tatum, inspired by an ambition to see more of the Prairie state,pushed on th Galena, where he spent two or three years at the lead mines, returning to Fulton county in 1827 or 1828. In 1825 Fulton county extended east and west from the Illinois to the Mississippi river, and from the base line near where Rushville, Schuyler county, now stands, to the norther boundary of the state, and included the country where Rock Island, Galena, Peoria and Chicago now are. It was only a few years before Tatum and his two companions arrived in the county that the buffalo, deer, bear and wolf roamed through the forests and over the prairies, the Indian their enemy. Many Indians were still here in the late '20s and their log and bark canoes could often be seen gliding over the placid waters of the Illinois and Spoon rivers. But the westward tread of the Anglo-Saxon had reached the military tract and the country was soon wrested from those who had for centuries refused to develop its resources. When the fearless, industrious, enterprising pioneers came, the Indians, the buffalo, the deer and the wolf had to go. Dr. W. T. Davison was undoubtedly the first white man to make his home within the present boundaries of Fulton County, but John Eveland, who located at or just above the old pioneer town of Waterford on Spoon river, in 1820, was the first actual white settler. Eveland lived on Spoon river but a few years when he moved to Buckheart township and built a cabin on what is now known as the Eveland branch, a small stream which flows into Big creek west of Bryant. In the spring of 1830 Mathew Tatum built a round-log, one-room cabin on the northeast quarter of section seven, Buckheart township, near the source of the Eveland branch, and on the first day of August, 1830, was married to Mrs. Lydia Eggers--whose maiden name was Dollar. After living till fall on the T. J. Shepley place, they moved into this cabin. Ony a few stones are left to mark the spot where it stood. Along about 1832 a one-room hewed-log house was built to shelter the family, and this is still standing and is one of the old pioneer landmarks of the county. It stands just north and a little west of the old original Tatum cabin, and is in a fair state of preservation when we take into consideration the fact that it has been standing for three-quarters of a century. The winter following the occupation of the old original cabin was the winter of the deep snow, which is so vividly remembered by the old settlers who are still living and who were here at that time. It was the heaviest snow that ever fell in Illinois, so far as known by any one now living, or within the memory of the earliest pioneers. "It was after this snow," said the subject of this sketch, John G. Tatum (son of Mathew Tatum), "that many settlers accustomed to the advantages of an older civilization became dissatisfied and left the country never to return. I have often heard my parents speak of this great snowfall. Father's corn was up on the Shepley place, in Canton township, and had not been gathered in and cribbed and as the depth of the snow was a great barrier to all travel he had a pretty tough time going into the field and digging down until he cam to ears enough to fill his sack, which he carried home on his back to feed his stock or to beat or grate into meal for family use. "The big snow found many of the settlers wholly unprepared for a long siege and there was a great deal of suffering. People were absolutely blockaded or housed up and did not go out until starvation compelled them. "I was born in the hewed log-cabin-- built, I think, in 1832--which is still standing about 100 yards south of our present residence, but which has not been occupied for several years. I lived in it several years alone and am the last occupant of the old home where I was born and reared to manhood and where my parents lived and died. "The date of my birth is Dec. 13, 1837. My father was a native of Rowan county, N. C., and my mother was born in Laurens county, S. C. Father was born Feb. 18, 1789, and died Sept. 19, 1868. Mother, whose maiden name was Dollar, was born in 1803, and died Oct. 2, 1872. Her father William Dollar, was a native of Wales and her mother, Ruth (Beasley) Dollar, of Virginia. Grandfather Dollar served under Washington in the war of the revolution, for seven years. He died in Buckheart township, Sept. 6, 1838. The remains of my parents are interred in the Shields chapel cemetery. The names of the Tatum children are George W., born March 25, 1832, died in 1864, John Goforth, Mrs. Amy Cluts, and Mrs. Sarah Jane Shields. Mrs. Cluts and myself still reside on the old homestead by Mrs. Shields lives at Los Angeles, Calif. "I never married and we three are the only representatives of the Tatum family now living and when we pass away the name will become extinct. "The Rev. James Tatum, who was one of the pioneer preachers of the county, died in Hays, (Ellis?) county, Kan. in 1898, aged 97 years. His wife and all the children are dead. "Politically, father was a Democrat. Both he and mother were members of the Regular Baptist church. "Uncle Jimmy Tatum was two years younger than father, was a large, powerfully built man, and although a little eccentric was an earnest preacher of pioneer days and was of a ferrently religious turn of mind. He labored arduously in building up the early Regular Baptist churches of the county. His education was limited and he was compelled to perform severe manual labor to supply his family with te necessaries of life, yet he was a faithful, untiring, conscientious worker who went about doing good. His was a life well spent and affords lessons of zeal and Christian devotion under adverse circumstances, worthy of emulation of all believers. He helped to organize the Baptist church in the Eveland neighborhood in a very early day. "Father bought the old Tatum homestead from the patentee, a man named Bullard, paying $300 for it, or a little less than $2.00 an acre. It was wild land and save a small prairie on the west side, was covered with a heavy growth of timber. "The men and women who remained after the winter of the deep snow and built homes in the forests and developed farms from the wilderness--the men and women who endured the hardships and bore the disadvantages found in the early settling of the county--were made of sterner stuff than the weaklings who became homesick and went back to the older states from whence they came. "Yes, I have heard my parents speak of the sudden change in January, 1836. The cold came on suddenly and was so intense that many people's noses, ears, fingers and toes were frozen. I have some recollection myself of the sever winter of 1842-3. The years 1844, 1851, 1858 and 1865 were notable as wet years, but after 1865 every seventh year ceased to be wet. "The 17-year locusts made their first appearance since I can recollect in 1844. They were very numerous that year and did considerable damage to young trees, etc. Seventeen years later, or in 1861, they again came, but not in such great numbers as in 1844. They came in 1878 and 1895 also and will come again in 1912. Their numbers seem to be gradually decreasing. "Oh, yes--I can recall the time when there was very little money in the country, and when father first came to the country most of the business was done by bartering one article for another. Coon skins passed as currency up to about the time I was born. "In an early day cotton was quite extensively grown in Fulton county and father raised a crop the first year after he was married. But the climate was not adapted to the raising of the tropical plant, and flax was substituted for cotton. "Neighborhood exchanges, as I stated before, were the earliest commercial transactions carried on in the county. Beeswax, honey, tallow and peltries were among the earliest articles shipped by flatboat to St. Louis. Sometimes a few bushels of wheat or corn would be added. This was before the advent of steamboats on the Illinois river. "After the steamboats commenced to ply up and down the river a new system of commerce sprang up. Every town would contain one or two merchants who would buy corn, wheat and dressed hogs in the fall, store them in warehouses on the river at some of the landings and when navigation opened in the spring would ship the winter accumulations to St. Louis, New Orleans or Cincinnati for sale. "At first, so far as the farmer was concerned in all these transactions, money was an unknown factor. Goods were always sold on 12 months time and payment made with the proceeds of the farmers crops. Hogs were always sold ready dressed and from $1.50 to $2.50 was the price paid per hundredweight. "A farmer would call in his neighbors some bright fall or winter morning to help him kill hogs. Immense kettles filled with boiling hot water were emptied into a huge scalding hogshead or tub and the sleds of the farmers, covered with loose planks, formed a platform for dressing. When the work of killing was completed and hogs had time to cool such as were intended for domestic use were cut up and salted down in barrels or troughs and the surplus was hauled to market. The farmers then were content to raise pork at the prices paid but such prices would not satisfy them now. "But very little of the land was under fence and stock of all kinds ran at large. A bell was put on one animal of each herd or drove of cattle, sheep or horses and every farmer knew the sound of his own bells. Bells that could be heard a long distance were the ones usually selected and we didn't have much trouble in locating our stock. The woods each fall were full of acorns, hickory nuts, walnuts and hazelnuts, and hogs would grow fat on them. "it is not generally known, but it is a fact nevertheless, that there was no bluegrass here in an early day. Stock lived mostly on the prairie or bluestem jointed grass which attained a very rank growth on the rich prairie soil or on the bottom land along the steams. "Another thing I wish to state: There were no rats in Illinois until along in the early '50s' and there were no red foxes here until after the close of the civil war. Gray foxes were quite plentiful but they have almost or entirely disappeared and the red foxes have taken their places. Gray foxes are not long-distance runners and are easily caught in an hour's chase with a good pack of hounds. "Oh, yes--there were wild hogs here since I can remember. Along in the spring of 1838 or 1839, I have heard my father say, the settlers set out en masse and caught and killed all wild hogs in Buckheart, Canton, Liverpool, Banner and Putman townships, and the following winter they were hunted and killed and the meat divided pro rata among the citizens. "I omitted to state that the severe winter of 1842-43 was one of the longest winters ever experienced since the county was settled by the whites. The cold weather set in the first part of November and lasted until the following Ap;ril. "There was a wilderness of grass and flowers on the prairies here in pioneer times, and plenty of grass was found even in the timber. "Isaiah Stillman and John Coleman are two of Canton's first pioneer business men whom I remember. "When father first came here, and up to 1830, there were no regular dry goods stores in Canton. Up to that period goods were purchased either at Edwardsville or St. Louis. "D. W. Vittum was also one of the pioneer business men of Canton and ran a sort of general store. "The country was full of game and while father was not a noted hunter he killed a deer or a turkey occasionally and our table was supplied a part of the time at least with wild meat. The last deer killed in this neighborhood was in the winter of 1864, but hounds chased one across the country west of us in 1873. "Yes, I am one of the pioneer teachers of the county and was educated in the pioneer schools of the county, which were conducted in log houses provided with homemade furniture. The Tatum school house was an unhewn log building and stood a few feet west of the present brick school house. The logs were by no means straight and the roof was low and covered with clapboards kept in place by weight poles. Holes were cut through the logs to admit a scanty supply of light. The seats had no backs and the writing desk was a board supported on slanting pins driven into one of the logs. One side of the room was occupied by an enormous old-fashioned fireplace. It was in this building that I learned the rudiments of the 'three R's,' John Spencer was my first teacher and Frank Hyatt, son of 'Squire' Henry Hyatt, was my second. Hyatt was a cripple and died when still a young man. Lawrence Slaughter and L. P. Rogers were both old time instructors. "Divine services used to be held in the old Tatum temple of learning and among the pioneer ministers who conducted services there were the Rev. Lawrence Eggers, the Rev. James Tatum the Rev. John Spencer and the Rev. John Goforth. The old Pleasant Grove Methodist Episcopal church, which stood west of our place, near Civer, was sold and moved into the farm just north of us, which now belongs to Everly Brothers. The remains of many of the pioneers who were buried in the Pleasant Grove cemetery have been disinterred and buried in other cemeteries by some of them are still there. But as the land is now farmed their graves probably could not be located. "I taught my first school in 1839, I think, in the Tatum school house and my last school in 1874, was taught at the same place. During the years intervening I taught at Independence, at Science Hill and in other districts. Ira Porter, John Jameson, Arthur Stel, Mrs. Olive Harries, Charles McBroom, George Wilcoxen, Frank Moran and Thompson Laird, so of Samuel Laird of (?) township are some of my old scholars. I hold certificates from the following county superintendents of schools; Horatio J. Benton, William H,. Haskell and Stephen Y. Thorton. "I omitted to say that there were no pheasants in Fulton county until after I had reached manhood. "We took our grists at first to Jacob Ellis or Henry Hines' mill on big creek, but later went to Duncan's mill on Spoon river and to the James Eggers mill which was located where the village of London Mills now stands. "Some of the names of the early settlers whom I now recall ere Robert Shields, 'Squire' Henry Hyatt, George Putman, Ephraim Reeves, Samuel Wilcoxen, John H. Martin, Samuel Turner, Thomas and (?) Moran, Major Joseph Herring, Nicholas McCreary, Joseph Crosthwait, Daniel Brown, Nathaniel Banks, John W. Shinn, J. H. Shipp, Thompson Maple, John G. Graham Joel Wright, Samuel Culton, John G. Piper, John Culton and John Luckey. John Culton was a blacksmith and made the first plow I ever saw that would scour. It was the old diamond plow made all in one piece, that was first used in this section. "Canton, when I first knew it, was not the important business place, the city, it is today. "I was here long before the advent of railroads, was here when the county was almost in a primitive wild state and when deer, turkeys, wolves and all kinds of game were abundant. In fact, I have grown up with the country, have lived to see Fulton county developed from a wilderness to a well settled and wealthy section of the state. I assisted in clearing the old homestead and it is here that most of my uneventful life has been passed. I guess I might say that my life, in a great measure, corresponds with the development that has gone on about me. "I am a Democrat and cast my first presidential vote for Stephen A. Douglas in 1860. I have held the office of supervisor and town clerk, and in the winter of 1882 kept the books for the E. J. Williams Coal company at St. David. I have passed the time of active work but spend a part of my time in the garden and orchard. Mineralogy, I guess, is my fad, or hobby, and I have a pretty thorough knowledge of the science of minerals. I was reared amid pioneer scenes and know something about the unremitting toil required to clear, plow and imporve the land of Buckheart township. My sister, Mrs. Amy Cluts will tell you something about her early recollections and something more about the early history of Buckheart township and the Tatum family." John Goforth Tatum is one of the native pioneers of Buckheart township and one of the prominent factors in the growth and development of Fulton County, with which he has been closely identified since his boyhood. He is the oldest living representative of the Tatum family, is a close student, and intelligent citizen and has interested himself much in educational and scientific matters. He has never sought office, preferring the quiet and happiness of the peaceful fireside to the turmoil of public life. As stated before, he is a close student, is one of the men who find books in trees, sermons in stones, music in the running brooks, and good in everything. He has had a large experience as a teacher, is well endowed mentally, possesses a firm character and high principles, and is an influence for good in his community, whence all the years of his life have been spent. Perhaps no man now living in Buckheart township has been more intimately connected with its history and progress that John G. Tatum, and no family stands higher in the annals of this region than that of which he is a worthy representative. The life sketch of Mrs. Amy Cluts who remembers much regarding the early days in Fulton county and the pioneer life in which she bore a part will be published later, together with additional reminisences and history of the Tatum family.