Grundy County IL Archives Biographies.....Holderman, Abram ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com April 29, 2006, 1:55 pm Author: 1883 US Bio Dictionary Abram Holderman Seneca Is the son of Abram and Charlotte (O’Neal) Holderman. His father was by descent a Pennsylvania Dutchman, and his mother of Irish blood. Abram Holderman, Sr., was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, and when eighteen years old removed to Ross county, Ohio, where he married. They were a prosperous and prolific pair, and seven sons and seven daughters grew upon the household tree. Eleven of the family reached maturity, and ten of them married and raised families of their own. The total number of their children was 101. Abram, Sr., was an extensive farmer and stock-raiser in Ohio, and used to drive large herds to the Philadelphia and Baltimore markets. In July, 1831, he took the western fever, and came into Illinois prospecting. There were no white settlements in this part of the state at that time, and upon reaching Door Prairie, Indiana, he hired an Indian to pilot him through. He had no definite idea where he wanted to go, but came seventy miles into the Indian country before stopping. They rode on horseback through pathless prairies, slept in their blankets when night overtook them, with their saddles for pillows, and on the morning of the third day a lovely grove, in the midst of broad prairies, invited his possession, and he stuck his stakes. The land had been surveyed a couple of years previously, and he selected eighty acres of timber on what proved to be seminary lands. Returning for his family, he made ready as soon as possible, and started for the land of promise. One great Pennsylvania wagon, drawn by four horses, one common two- horse wagon, and one large ox wagon, contained his family and his household stuff. Himself, wife and nine children, three wagons, eleven horses, nineteen head of blooded cattle and three yoke of oxen formed the grand cavalcade. Like his ancient namesake, “he, with all his goods possessed, turned his footsteps toward the West”. But while he could not boast of as many wives, he had more children and almost as much substance as Jacob himself, the father of the twelve patriarchs. The journey was an immense undertaking in those days, when roads and bridges existed only as a result of a far-off civilization, but it was full of excitement and pleasing, as well as painful, incidents. They had to ford and sometimes to swim the streams, and flounder through the sloughs, in which they were often mired, but they had plenty of help, and always conquered. Their route lay along the southern shore of Lake Michigan, and they Chicago in mind as one stopping point; but, failing to get through as expected, night overtook them when about twelve miles out. Their provisions were exhausted, they all went supperless to bed, and their teams as hungry as themselves. Morning came, and no breakfast, but they were sustained by visions of plenty in the young city twelve miles away, and started early for the land of promise and a square meal. Imagine the feelings of that hungry crowd when two bushels of oats, at $4 per bushel, and a solitary loaf of brown bread, was all the embryo city could produce to feed eleven persons, eleven horses, and a herd of cattle. The frugal mother had a little Ohio butter left in a jar, and one slice of bread and butter each sufficed to stay their hunger till they could escape such inhospitable shores, which they did, as Lot escaped from Sodom, in haste and without looking behind them. Twelve miles more through mud and water, ankle deep and upward, brought them to Widow Berry’s Point. Here they struck supplies, fed and rested till the following day. Forty-seven dollars paid their little bill and laid in supplies for the rest of the journey, now only about fifty miles further. To Plainfield, the nearest town, was thirty miles, which they reached that night, without further incident than the inevitable floundering through bottomless quagmires which about every day brought them. Another twenty miles, and Kellogg’s Grove was reached, between which and the new home lay the forbidden depths of Big Slough. Here the whole party mired down, and it took two days of hard work to get the wagons through to hard ground, one by one, with all the force they could muster. But the end was reached at last, in October, 1831, and for two weeks the party found shelter in the cabin of hospitable Edmund Weed. Another eighty acres of the choice timber was immediately added to the former purchase. Two small cabins had been erected on it by the former owner, in one of which the family wintered. Mr. Holderman and one of the boys went with a team to the Vermilion River, where they succeeded in buying twenty-six bushels of wheat and ninety pounds of an animal somewhat resembling the modern hog, but called by the boys prairie shark. They succeeded also in buying a fine fat steer, whose carcass, frozen solid, furnished the family with fresh meat all winter. Before spring, however, the flour was all gone, and for six weeks the family lived on pounded corn, so poor the horses refused to eat it. With the opening of navigation the father went to Saint Louis, purchased seed corn, groceries, and provisions, amounting to about $400, and had them brought by a keel-boat as far as Ottawa. The stuff made five wagon-loads, and consumed four days in transportation from Ottawa. On the morning of May 17, which was the day following the safe arrival of the last load of their summer supplies, a friendly Indian, by the name of Peppers, came with a hasty message from Shawbenee that eighty of Blackhawk’s Indian braves were on the war-path, and that their only hope was an immediate flight to Ottawa. Five families had by this time gathered around Holderman’s Grove in a fine, compact settlement, and they all collected at Holderman’s in hot haste for defense or instant flight. It was near night, and dreading lest they should meet the treacherous redskins on the journey through the darkness, they resolved to await the coming of the following day. Peppers had reported that Hollenbeck and family, who had settled on the Fox River, were murdered, as he had heard the report of guns after he left them, but it afterward proved erroneous. Hollenbeck was absent, and the boys had fired off their guns to reload with a fresh charge, and the whole family had secreted themselves in the brush. Before day Holderman, Cummings and Kellogg went out with their horses toward Hollenbeck’s to reconnoiter. At daybreak they came in sight of the savages, who, after murdering the family, as their friends supposed, were making merry with the whisky and tobacco which Hollenbeck had on hand. A sentry posted on the cabin roof dropped to the ground at sight of the three horsemen, and the whole band, forty strong, vanished like rabbits in their burrows. Only one, peeping from behind the corner of the house, sought to engage the white men in a parley, while others, skulking through the ravine, got in range from their ambush and fired upon them. This stampeded the little party, without further injury than a few bullet holes through coat and hat, but the whole howling band of savages were instantly in full pursuit. Although well mounted, they had little ammunition, and soon realized they were leading the savages upon their defenseless families, to their certain destruction. A shrewd maneuver alone saved them. Reaching a rise of ground, with the Indians in full sight, at the suggestion of Holderman the party suddenly halted, and Holderman, swinging his hat and shouting at the top of his voice, seemed to be signaling a reserve force to come on. This bold action convinced the Indians that a large party were beyond their sight, and taking counsel of their fears, they beat a hasty retreat and left the neighborhood. By preconcerted arrangements, the families kept a lookout, and on a signal from the returning scouts, the horses were hitched to the wagons, the women and children and a few hastily gathered supplies were bundled in, and when the party reached them all was in readiness for flight. The sleeping children were snatched from their beds, and some of them tossed into the wagons in their night-clothes. A speedy trip to Ottawa saved their lives, for the outwitted savages, on discovering that they were not followed, returned and wreaked their vengeance on Holderman’s summer supplies, destroying what they could not carry off, and driving away all the stock in the neighborhood. However, they only got them as far as the Fox River, when, in attempting to get them across, the cattle escaped and returned home. After a few weeks spent in Ottawa, where they helped to build a rude log fort, the company went to Pekin, Illinois, and did not find their way back to their homes till the following August, when the war was over. After this the settlement prospered and grew rich. Holderman followed his former occupation of cattle-raising and farming, and grew rich too. He at one time sent a drove of 313 head of fine fat cattle to Philadelphia, in care of his sons, Barton and Abram, Jr., then a lad of eighteen years. They got 312 of them through, and sold at $52.50 a head, more than doubling their money after paying all expenses. Abram remained with his father until twenty-three years old, when Abram, Sr., gave him a plow, harness, and the use of all land he could work, with the advice: “Earn your own money, and you will know how to prize it; but if you want any help at any time, come to me.” Hiring $700 of William Hoge, afterward his father-in-law, he joined forces with his elder brother, Barton, and worked a farm of 240 acres in the town of Felix, owned by their father. This is the farm afterward bought by Samuel Holderman. At the end of two years the brothers settled up and divided, and Abram received in cash his share of the profits, $1,800. He then married Miss Mary, the daughter of William Hoge, who, coming from Virginia, had reached the country two weeks before the Holdermans, and settled on Nettle Creek. Immediately after their marriage, which took place May 6, 1847, they settled at Holderman’s Grove, and lived in one of his father’s houses, who had by this time bought nearly all of his neighbors’ farms. Here they lived two years longer, till 1849, and then moved on to a quarter section of land he had bought near Seneca, at $3 per acre. Considering his antecedents, it was inevitable that he should go to raising cattle, and he at once bought all the young cattle he could pay for. From this time on, the history of his life is a repetition, from year to year, of substantially the same events. He multiplied his flocks and herds till the free range was fenced up, and then bought land to pasture them. Then more cattle, and again more land. Fenced his land in the winter, and broke prairie in the summer. Worked what he wanted to comfortably, but always rented the greater part of it. And so his landed estate increased, till now it lies along the canal and the Rock Island railroad a distance of seven miles east and west, and his herds are well nigh countless. Including the portions of his four grown children, he is the owner of about 7,000 acres of the choicest land in the valley of the Illinois River. He is the father of eight children: seven sons, three of whom died in childhood, and one daughter. To four of them, who are of age, he has given about 2,000 acres of his land in nearly equal parts. James A., his eldest son, married Virginia Bashaw, and has three children. He has settled on his farm of 650 acres, and, like his ancestors, is a successful farmer and stock man. The others are unmarried. Mr. Holderman is a republican, but takes no interest in politics outside of his own town. There are but eighty voters in his town, and they manage their matters in a very original manner. On election day they all gather at the polls, appoint a committee to name the candidates, and make their election unanimous; yet, strange to say, they have hard work to get the officers chosen to accept the honors conferred. Mr. Holderman has been school director twenty- five years, road commissioner twenty, and supervisor five or six times, till he positively won’t take it any more. He is fond of company, and generally keeps a dozen or fifteen hunting dogs and as many horses. Fox and coon hunting is his greatest diversion, and he greatly enjoys a grand hunt over his immense estate with a party of his friends from Chicago and elsewhere. He is known all over Illinois as Abe Holderman, the coon hunter, and has led many a party headlong into the ditch when after coons in the dark. His schooling in youth was practically limited to a six months’ term, but he mastered old Daball’s arithmetic in that time, and no man in the state can beat him when he sits down to figure, which he usually does before he trades. Although now past sixty years of age, he is active, strong and hearty as most men at forty. His wife, now fifty-five, is more feeble, but both yet enjoy life with much zest. With such an immense estate about them, neighbors are a luxury, and schools and churches only found in town; but the family are exceedingly friendly and hospitable, and enjoy a visit immensely; their latch- string is always found hanging outside. page 275-278. Additional Comments: Source: The United States Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Eminent and Self-Made Men, Illinois Volume; Chicago and New York: American Biographical Publishing Company, H. C. Cooper, Jr. & Company, Proprietors, 1883 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/grundy/bios/holderma102gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ilfiles/ File size: 14.2 Kb