Jackson-Union County IL Archives News.....A. H. ROBERTS RECALLS EARLY DAYS IN M'BORO October 16, 1923
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karima Allison quest@insightbb.com and Mary Riseling riseling@insightbb.com July 10, 2006, 2:05 pm

Murphysboro Daily Independent October 16, 1923

Esteemed Merchant and Undertaker Came Here in '72 and Established One of City's
First Families-Born in '44, Year of Great Flood

    A. H. ROBERTS was born in Jonesboro, Ill., April 13, 1844, went to war when
he was 16 years and 3 months old, came to Murphysboro in 1872 because
Murphysboro people were paying $18 for home-made black walnut coffins that only
brought $6 at Jonesboro, had the village cobbler SCHRODT fashion him a pair of
alligator boots in 1873, and went ahead and married Francis Ellen SANDERS.

    The tenor of his years has been serene; save for a domestic difference of
opinion in the early Eighties the splendid ROBERTS family has stood united and
strong.  In the eightieth decade of the Nineteenth century of our Lord, however,
came twin sons to the proud house of ROBERTS, and the father thereof, after days
of cogitation wrote with steady hand and determined mind the names of Alexander
Joshua ROBERTS and Hamilton Sanders ROBERTS across the sacred leaf.  Presto! 
The twins were named.  And such was the turmoil made by those who would have
named them otherwise that Mayor ROBERTS missed a good dinner, not being able to
face the music.  Later they called the twins Ham and Eck for short.  Homer E.,
the youngest, arrived several years later, and, there being just one of him, was
named without so much ado.

    Among our subject’s oldest memories are two things that occurred at
Jonesboro.  Outstanding of these is Mr. ROBERTS' trip with his good father
Joshua to Anna to see the graders make way for the building of the Illinois
Central railroad south through Southern Illinois.  The other is the hair, hide
and horns of a bull in the fork of a sycamore below Big Hill near Vancil's
Landing, where the mighty flood of '44 had left the criter stranded.  The bull
drowned the year Mr. ROBERTS was born.  Eight years later the boy saw the
beast's remains in the sycamore, left there as a high water mark.

    Welcome to Our City.  "Ham" ROBERTS went to Dixie fighting mad with the
109th Illinois.  He knows but two survivors of the outfit, Paul MILLER and a
comrade by the name of SHEA, both of Jonesboro.  It was the same 109th that,
guarding the famous Morgan of rebel fame, let him slip through the lines. 
Officers of the 109th were cashiered and the men, 589 of them, were consolidated
with the 11th Illinois in April 1863.  Some of the 11th camp bullies called the
109th vets "rebs" and the newly arrived outfit of daredevils had to kill a few
of their new messmates to keep peace in the family.

    The war wore itself out, however, and the day came when A. H. ROBERTS, born
an undertaker, was making black walnut coffins at Jonesboro for $6 and heard
that "Squire" KENNEDY was being paid $18 for the same models in Murphysboro.  So
A. H. decided to have a look.  And when he set foot in Mt. Carbon, then the
local industrial center and "big town" just across the Big Muddy from the gaudy
young Murphysboro, who should meet him but the revered and long deceased Cal.
DISHON.  Cal said: "Where you going?"  A. H. said, "oh, just looking around for
a location."

    And Cal and Ham crossed the river and walked "down town" into the heart of a
district composed of 32 saloons and fewer churches and met C. C. (Doc) CULLEY, a
hardware and furniture merchant doing business on a small capitol at the old
Desberger corner where the AKERS department store now flourishes at Tenth and
Chestnut.  Fifteen minutes later, Mr. ROBERTS had bought half interest with
"Doc" CULLEY and Atty. Geo. W. SMITH, later Congressman who had an officer on
the second floor, had become Mr. ROBERTS legal advisor.  Nine months later Mr.
ROBERTS bought out Mr. CULLEY.  Deaths, natural and otherwise, were plentiful
those days.  He prospered.

    Logan House "Last Chance".  The Logan House was the "last chance" west for a
hamberber (pardon the modern appelation) those days.  Murphysboro pegged out
just beyond where Dr. John LOGAN had set up a big frame hotel to fare the
traveler.  Only a few houses extended beyond 13th Street.  It was just a hop,
step and a jump from the court house to the brambles, and some careless citizens
of the day took to the tall and uncut in less than they when Jack FITZGERALD,
village marshall, unlimbered his six-shooter or his padded willow finger stick.

    Outstanding business places on the "square" were the Sam DESBERGER brick at
the southeast corner, the W. C. RAINBOW brick where the WERNER drug store now
thrives, the Dr. BIERER corner where the Citizens State and Savings Bank cashes
checks today, the Logan Hotel, and Miles W. SHAW's store on the old historical
South Side.  In the middle of the square stood the court house, later remodeled
and given a town clock that a cocked hat, so proud it was.  The court house and
the clock are still there.

    First Sunday Lid.  Hugh CRAWFORD was mayor of Murphysboro when Cal DISHON
and "Ham" ROBERTS exchanged amenities at Mt. Carbon depot in '72.  A decade
later A. H. ROBERTS was elected mayor on a reform ticket and applied the first
Sunday saloon lid on the town's history.  During his term he had occasion to
arrest but one saloonist, and this one he fined $500 and cured him for all time.

    Among the "bloods" of the town were Judge MAYHEM; and the legal lights G. W.
SMITH, J. Q. A. KIMMEL, G. W. ANDREWS, and considered their peer in their day,
Geo. W. HILL.  Also the physicians BREWSTER, BAIN and ORMSBY, the last named the
father of the present-day physician and surgeon Dr. O.B. ORMSBY.  Add to these
the LOGANs, the famous General John A., back from the wars, and Thom. M., and
the more deliberate brother Jim.  And to the memories of the times, A. H.
ROBERTS bids us add the characters.Dan MORRIS and Jimmy O'BRIEN--big, upstanding
men who could draw more blood in a three-minute fist fight than Murphysboro now
spills in a month's run of nose-smashers.

    It was not against the law when "Ham" ROBERTS was mayor to have it out fist
and skull unless you blocked the sidewalk.  One July 4th back in the early
eighties, Mayor ROBERTS walked out to old Turner's Park, North Ninth Street,
faced a score of fighters and advised that it would be perfectly OK for the
fights to continue during the remainder of the day so long as nobody used a
knife or a gun.  When a riotous fight got under way in the "Bullards Saloon",
the olden day "Miner's Delight" down Ninth Street way, Mayor ROBERTS would step
around when Jack FITZ couldn't handle the boys and say: "Boys, cit it out." and
they would.

    Still on the Job.  A. H. ROBERTS is still on the job, at the corner of Tenth
and Chestnut which cost him $1500 in the Seventies and where he has done
undertaking and sold hardware across the same old counter ever since, is now
worth ten fold the investment.  The same old cedar tree stands where it grew
back in the Seventies, at the northeast corner of the ROBERTS' home, Tenth and
Mulberry, where he bought the "whole end of town" for $2800.  There he still
resides with the same good wife of his choice, with his sons around him as his
business partners, and with his daughters born Ellen, May, Delia and Caroline
every one of them living and never a death in the circle about the hearth.

    Mr. ROBERTS is eighty now an still active in business and in the Grand Army
of the Republic.  His sons are good business men.  Homer E., the youngest and
still single, and "Ham and Eck" proud in their might as daddies and back-yard
gardeners when the season is right.  And the Daily Independent takes pride in
presenting the likeness of "Ham" and his boys, better known as A. H. ROBERTS &
Sons, Undertakers and Hardware Dealers, Murphysboro, Ill.

    In preparing this sketch of the life of A. H. ROBERTS, the writer despaired
of detailed continuity, space forbidding.  Yet rest assured that A. H. ROBERTS
can tell you in an hour's time scores of tales of the Murphysboro then and now,
and laugh as heartily as a man so well preserved in body and mind at four score
years should laugh.


Additional Comments:

The above story is taken from the Golden Anniversary Edition of the Murphysboro
Daily Independent, published on October 16, 1923, celebrating 50 years in
publication.

Transcribed by Mary Riseling from her grandfather C. E. RISELING's collection of
old newspapers.

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/jackson/newspapers/ahrobert33nnw.txt

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