History of Williamson County, Illinois The following article appeared in the February 1937 issue of the ILLINOIS JOURNAL of COMMERCE. HERRING, HERRIN, HARRISON and WILLIAMS: A TALE of WILLIAMSON COUNTY by Barbara Burr Hubbs "In Revolutionary times, the Herrings and Herrins were Carolina residents. They moved westward along the usual stages, through Kentucky and Tennessee, and on to Illinois while it was yet a Territory. The seventh generation is now growing up in city homes and riding on paved streets where the first and second generations opened farms on the Indians' hunting ground. The menace of the Indians had just been lifted when the first members of this clan raised their cabin on Illinois soil. With back-breaking toil they built homes out of the raw materials of the earth, with no help but their own hands. When a new era of industry opened, they again showed the way. When a new economic order had to be built upon the wreckage of the old, they led their neighbors toward a more abundant life. The families of Herring and Herrin were first joined in 1811 when David Herrin and Sarah Herring were married. The simple ceremony was read by the bride's father, a lay preacher and elder in the Baptist church at their log cabin home in Hopkins County, Kentucky. From this union came the Illinois family whose name has had world-wide fame because it was given to the locality, then the town, which they founded and where they live. Sarah's brother, James Herring, had the American pioneer's desire to see what lay behind the sunset. In the year after her wedding, he took up his long rifle and joined a party on their way to the new Illinois country. He found fine hunting and a few indomitable settlers crowded into block houses for protection against the Indians. One stormy night, James Herring looked out of Charles Humphrey's block house at the ferry on Muddy River and saw hostile Indians walking around the little fort while the lightning flashed. But they were gone before day. When he returned to Kentucky, James Herring told marvelous tales of the Illinois country. But it was not until the last disturbance of the War of 1812 had ended that he persuaded his family to make the move. Then Elder Isaac Herring and his wife, Unity, with their four sons and two unmarried daughters, came to Illinois. They followed the route George Rogers Clark and his soldiers had taken when they marched to Kaskaskia in 1778 to proclaim Illinois a part of the State of Virginia. The Herrings sent back such favorable reports of the new home that David Herrin brought his wife and two children, Delila and Jackson, to join the rest of the family. They crossed the Ohio River and came along the old Kaskaskia trail to the northwest corner of what is now Williamson County. The timber was broken there by one of those open prairies which so attracted the pioneer, who searched for a farm rather than for hunting grounds. In the three years that Isaac Herring had been living on that prairie he had opened a few acres of the heavy sod for a cornpatch and had built his cabin. His eldest son, Jonathan Herring, had installed a bride in a new home nearby. Many hands made light work, and soon a third cabin was ready for David and Sarah Herrin. Three cabins made quite a settlement in those days, and the place had to have a name. Herrin's Prairie became known to all the scattered settlers of southern Illinois. Confusion arose from the two names which were so similar, and strangers dropped the final letter of Herring in the careless southern way. Herring or Herrin, the residents of Herrin's Prairie became well-known to the new settlers and travelers as they came along the weary road from Shawneetown to Kaskaskia. Isaac Herring rode horseback to Shawneetown in 1816 to enter his land at the United States land office there. David Herrin waited until 1829 to make formal entry of his home lands, although he had filed his claim for 160 acres of the military bounty lands in Bond County as early as October, 1818. The United States census of 1820 lists him as a farmer and head of a family in Franklin County, Illinois. (Early Franklin County included the present area of Williamson.) The city of Herrin stands today in the same town 8 south, range 2 east where the four Herrin and Herring homesteads were located before 1820. No sooner were the bare necessities of food and shelter arranged for than Isaac Herring's thoughts turned to spiritual matters. He and his family, Herrings and Herrins, built in 1820 the second church within the present area of Williamson County, and he was its first and almost only preacher. They called their rough little building Rich Grove, in thanksgiving for the splendid forest trees which circled it. ELDER HERRING Elder Herring preached the stern tenets of the simple Baptist faith, and he exercised a leadership and was called to be a member of the church council. That was in 1829. There were other pioneer churches which he fostered, and Isaac Herring was also one of the organizers of the Franklin Association of United Baptists. Jonathan Herring, the eldest son of the preacher, was not content to be a simple farmer, nor did he share his father's call to preach. He saw a business opportunity. The church had brought other settlers to the prairie, and had made a center for the neighbors within a day's ride. Harmony, Indiana, was the nearest town where even the most simple machinery was available. The settlers of Herrin's Prairie had to take their cotton to Harmony Town to have it carded by the new machine, which released the women from the tedious labor of hand carding. Jonathan Herring had the assurance to build a cotton gin right on the home prairie, in spite of the sparse settlement nearby. It was ready for business in 1825, the last year of Eli Whitney's life. That simple cotton gin proved a great convenience. So successful was this first business venture that Jonathan Herring built a horse mill. It was a rude contrivance, but a great improvement on the labor of pounding grain into meal by hand. Even with two horses at work, it took two hours to grind one bushel of corn. Herring's mill had two sets of mill stones, and could grind both wheat and corn. The miller had to make a rule to grind only two bushels at a time for a customer. All had to wait their turn, so a trip to mill often meant camping overnight. GEORGE HARRISON Trade Associations there were none, but one businessman liked to talk over his problems with another in the same line, than as now. George H. Harrison had a water mill in the south part of the county, and he came to Herrin's Prairie to talk with the miller there. Business could be combined with pleasure, and young Harrison became acquainted with Miller Herring's niece Delila, the eldest child of David Herrin and Sarah Herring. Blooming, eighteen-year-old Delila became George Harrison's wife in 1833, and they went to live at the Harrison mill. George H. Harrison was one of five sons of a Virginia soldier of the Revolution. The young men had come west in search of better opportunities. One went as far as Texas, another was content with Tennessee, two crossed the river into Missouri, and George came to southern Illinois just as the militia was marching off to defend Chicago and the other northern settlements from Black Hawk. Harrison volunteered. Mr. Harrison had the enterprise to start a business at once in the new country. He established himself further by taking a wife from among the daughters of the old settlers. But Delila found it lonely clear across the county from the busy settlement of relatives in Herrin's Prairie, and the young Harrisons returned, with their two children, to the home neighborhood. Mr. Harrison opened a store, and began a successful business which was to outlast his own life by many years. WILLIAMSON COUNTY In 1839, the people of Franklin county voted on the question of dividing the area into two counties. The question carried, Williamson County was formed, and a new county seat was located "as near as may be the center of the new county." This new town, built in the open country, was named Marion. It seemed a favorable opening for an enterprising merchant. George H. Harrison moved his family to Marion. Captain John Cunningham was one of their neighbors, and little Louisa Martin Harrison played with Mary Cunningham, who grew up to become the wife of General John A. Logan. There were many delays before a building on the north side of the square was secured for the new store. Then the merchandise had to be ordered from Shawneetown and brought over the muddy roads by wagon and ox team. A bill for some of the goods survived--jugs and plates and earthenware were to entice farmers' wives from the shelves of the Harrison store. But fate had another end to the story. Before the merchandise was delivered, George H. Harrison died. Delila Herrin Harrison took her children back to Herrin's Prairie, where the original Harrison store was left to them. Oliver Herrin, Mrs. Harrison's younger brother, was keeping store there. Young David Ruffin Harrison, a boy of fourteen at the time of his father's death, took over the family responsibilities. First with his uncle as partner, then alone, he prospered as a merchant. Before many years a new brick building replaced the frame store which the father had built. This new store was built on the very land which David Herrin had farmed during his first year in Illinois. Jonathan Herring's old horse mill did not seem so wonderful as the years passed, and a new fangled steam mill was built in 1862. There were doubts about it, but the wheat flour was very fine and white, so public favor was won over. Herrin's Prairie Flouring Mill was housed in a pretentious three-story building. Partners in the enterprise were the son and daughter of George H. Harrison, whose first business had been a mill, and their uncle, Jackson Herrin. Private Ephraim Snyder Herrin was the eldest son of Jackson Herrin, and the namesake of his Aunt Elizabeth's husband. When the son joined the army, the father went to visit the camp at Cairo. Epidemics had attacked the troops, the hospitals were crowded, and Jackson Herrin's neighborly offices were enlisted in behalf to John G. Williams, a soldier in Eph Herrin's regiment. Mr. Williams had been living near Herrin's Prairie for several years, and Jackson Herrin brought him home from the hospital. Louisa Martin Harrison's husband was William Jasper Pope, whose father was a country doctor with a farm home where the great mines of Zeigler now are. Dr. Benjamin Pope had a mill at his farm, and his son had been the miller. When Herrin's Prairie mill was built, Will Pope became the miller there. Those were the days of the war. A cousin of Mr. Harrison and Mrs. Pope volunteered. John Grattan Williams was a native of Posey County, Indiana, and a member of a family from which many Indiana public officials have come. He had come alone to Williamson County, Illinois, shortly before the war broke out. He had enlisted with his new neighbors, and was elected a non-commissioned officer when the regiment organized. Pneumonia ended all thoughts of Corporal Williams' military service, and he came home with kindly old Jackson Herrin. He was made to feel himself a member of the family, and ten years later he actually became one. After Miller Will Pope died, John G. Williams and Louisa Harrison Pope were married. EPHRAIM HERRIN Ephraim Snyder Herrin, who escaped the epidemics of Cairo, was transferred to another regiment and served for the duration of the war. He marched with Sherman from Atlanta to the sea, and then paraded in the grand review at Washington. After his discharge in July, 1865, he returned to Herrin's Prairie and cheerfully took up peacetime pursuits. He married Fatima Brown, the daughter of a neighbor, and together they located on a farm of ninety-six acres which their labor increased to 240 acres. Mrs. Herrin celebrated her eighty-eighth birthday last November at the home of her daughter in Herrin. The war had brought wider horizons to the farmers of Herrin's Prairie, and they petitioned for a post office. It was established in 1864, and D. R. Harrison was appointed postmaster. He kept post office in his store, and the mail was brought once a week from the Sisney farmhouse on the route of the mail stage along the Marion and Carbondale road. Postmaster Harrison paid himself and the carrier from the sale of stamps. But letters were few, and there must have been weeks when the carrier's fee of fifty cents a trip came out of the postmaster's pocket. Herrins, Harrisons, and their kin found satisfaction for eighty years in the farm land which their patriarch Isaac had chosen. They were sound physically, they had no vices, and they lived long lives. In the estimate of their neighbors, they were good providers. A good farm, good fences, good horses were their standards of success. Herrin's Prairie was a prosperous settlement of independent farmers. They had their store, their post office, their mill. Their church and school were superior, by the standards of the times. They continued to vote the Democratic ticket, as they had done before the war. Life was restricted, but it had no complications. The year 1896 saw a change in Herrin's Prairie. Industry replaced farming. Coal mining on a large scale was begun. The present mine number 7 was sunk. The present Illinois Central Railroad was extended from Carbondale to Johnston City. The farms of the Herrins, the Harrisons, and the widowed Mrs. Williams were cut by railroad rights of way and scarred by mine shafts. The first prospecting for coal had been done in 1892 on the southwest corner of Louisa Harrison Williams' home farm. Two of the attractive residential streets of Herrin, Legion boulevard and east Herrin street, now intersect there. At the Corners on the Old Prairie Road, Mrs. Williams' land joined the farms of her brother and her cousin, D. R. Harrison and Ephraim S. Herrin. The three land owners hired Peter Schneider of Murphysboro to drill that first hole. The two men put up the necessary cash, and for her share Mrs. Williams boarded Schneider and his hands. Coal was found at 185 feet. Isaac Herring and David Herrin had pioneered to find farm homes. Now their descendants pioneered to find the first coal in that rich Williamson County field. Ephraim S. Herrin, veteran of many a weary march in the Civil War, was largely responsible for bringing the railroad within reach. On a part of his home farm, and on twenty acres which D. R. Harrison bought immediately adjacent on the south, the cousins platted the original survey of a town, to which Eph Herrin's name was given. Outsiders came to work at the mine, a sprawling settlement grew up near the shaft, and a village was incorporated in 1898. Herrin had eclipsed Herrin's Prairie. To accommodate the public and to improve his business, D. R. Harrison moved the post office and his store to a lot near the depot. The name of the post office was officially changed to Herrin on May 8, 1896. Two years later the revenues had increased until the postmastership became an attractive political reward. Postmaster Harrison was retired after a service of thirty-three years and ten months. Business was so brisk that banking facilities were required. Again Eph Herrin and D. R. Harrison were partners. Each brought his eldest son into the new organization. John A. Herrin was cashier and George H. Harrison was a director of the new bank. WALTER WILLIAMS Another member of the family's fifth generation came home to take his part in building the new town and its sustaining industry. Louisa Harrison and John Gattan Williams had had two sons before Mr. Williams' untimely death from pneumonia. The younger is Dayton D. Williams, now of Phoenix, Arizona. Walter W. Williams, the elder of these two sons, had ambitions for a broader life than that provided on his native farm in Herrin's Prairie. He had studied for a year at the Southern Illinois Normal at Carbondale and had taught at Spillertown in his native county of Williamson. He had returned to the Normal for two more years of study. The Normal term closed that year on a Friday in June. On Monday morning, student and teacher Walter Williams was at work on a new job. A switch was being built for the railroad spur from Herrin out to the mine. Mine superintendent Hiram Wilson hired Walter Williams to drive a team of mules. The Big Muddy Coal and Iron Company had bought a part of Mrs. Williams' land, and other acres from other members of the family. Now they were opening that first mine, and building the railroad spur to the shaft. The company was a St. Louis corporation, with O. L. Garrison and Ethan Allen Hitchcock as partners. The latter was Secretary of the Interior in President McKinley's cabinet. The machinery around the mine bore the initials E. A. H. which were a constant reminder of his ambitions to the driver of one team of mules. The railroad spur was built, and that mule driver went on to his next job with a fund of observation about mining operations. Walter Williams returned to his teaching, first at Carterville, then at Greenville, last as superintendent of schools in Benton, county seat of Franklin County, just north of his native county of Williamson. He then entered the law school of the University of Illinois, from which he graduated in 1903. The newly-fledged lawyer returned to Benton to form a partnership with William H. Hart, who had just retired as county judge. The following fall the fiftieth district elected a new representative, and Walter Williams served in the Forty-fourth General Assembly during 1905 and 1906. The law firm of Hart and Williams began to deal in mine properties, selling coal lands, sinking mine shafts, and representing outside interests. With the coal on his mother's farm as a nucleus, Mr. Williams bought and optioned large tracts. Before many years he was instrumental in closing the largest deal in coal lands ever made in southern Illinois, when the United States Fuel Company bought 40,000 acres in the Benton field. But the beginnings were small, and took all the determination which was the Herrin and Harrison heritage. Popular opinion of the time held that the coal of Benton and West Frankfort could not be mined profitably, and was of inferior grade. Mine development and the wide sale of this coal proved the theory untrue. Hart and Williams sank a shaft at West Frankfort. This mine and Joe Leiter's mine at Zeigler were the first in Franklin County. The West Frankfort mine was sold to the Dering Coal Company and afterward was transferred to Peabody. The coal was of exceptional quality, and was sold by Jack Dering under the trade-name "Little Jack Coal." After that sale, Hart and Williams organized the Benton Coal Company and developed the first mine at Benton. It was sold and another shaft, the Hart-Williams mine, was sunk farther east. This effort in developing the coal field of Franklin County pointed the way to a realization of the county's great natural wealth. These activities in the coal field, and his growing law practice, were not enough to occupy all of Mr. Williams' time and talents. He is always active in the councils of his and the family's party. In 1920 he was the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor of Illinois, on a state ticket headed by James Hamilton Lewis. The excellent balance of that ticket pleased the party leaders, but it was engulfed in the Harding landslide. Few of the Herrin clan have accepted the empty honors of elective office. True, George H. Harrison served as justice of the peace when that office was practically the sole law-enforcing agency. D. R. Harrison was postmaster, but before the office became a political football. Eph Herrin was school director in the home district for many years, and office which cannot be ranked as party politics. John A. Herrin was one of the mayors of the town named for his father; Paul D. Herrin served as city treasurer; Snyder E. Herrin is now city attorney of Herrin. But these are the exceptions in the long record of the family's citizenship in Illinois. Walter Williams shares this family trait. TRUSTEE AND FARMER When the university asked for the services of its graduate, that was a different matter. Mr. Williams was elected in 1930 a trustee of the University of Illinois, which granted his law degree in 1903. He has just completed his six year term. To this service he brought the knowledge acquired during a four-year term as member of the Normal board, to which he was appointed by Governor Edward F. Dunne. Thus the two schools which he attended, the Southern Illinois Normal and the University of Illinois, have each had his services as trustee. During his university trusteeship, and his term as president of that board, particular encouragement has been given the study of agriculture, and the Agricultural Experiment Station. Mr. Williams' own farm near Benton is a proving ground for his ideas on bettering farm standards in his home territory. When he sells young steers to a packer, he gets top price. Not only are they in prime condition, but the hidden food value of that beef is increased by the feed they have had. The grass and corn which feed cattle on the Williams' farm have a high and varied mineral content absent in grain grown on unfertilized fields. One of the proudest assertions Mr. Williams ever makes is a farmer's boast: "My cows don't wear themselves out with grazing; they've had a full meal and are lying down by ten o'clock in the morning." In the crisis which unemployment brought southern Illinois, Mr. Williams was drafted as director for the Works Progress Administration in the fifth district. This comprises twenty-two counties, thus including his native county of Williamson and his adopted one of Franklin. Every farm-to-market road and other community project has a more vital significance to him because of his intimate knowledge of his country and his neighbors. Few men know as many people in those twenty-two counties as he does, and his knowledge is not superficial acquaintance, but the first-hand friendship and understanding which comes from shared experience. Mr. Williams has followed another family tradition by becoming a Loyal Arch Mason. The meeting place of Herrin's Prairie Lodge number 693 was in a hall over his uncle's D. R. Harrison's store and post office. As a pioneer in that lodge, and for his high standing as mason and citizen, Mr. Harrison was honored with the thirty-third degree. John Grattan Williams was senior steward and treasurer of that same lodge in 1875 and 1876, shortly after its organization. Benton, where he was superintendent of schools in 1898, is still home to Mr. Williams. He is now the senior partner of his law firm, with Carter H. Harrison as junior partner. Many of the coal companies and railroad to whom he sold lands in the early development of the coal field are still Mr. Williams' clients. The Williams home, where the first lady of the land breakfasted after her inspection of Franklin County mines last spring, is one of the pleasant places of Benton. Mrs. Williams is a daughter of Captain Carroll Moore, who won his commission after enlisting as a private in Company I of the 31st Illinois Volunteers. That was the regiment which John A. Logan raised during the troublous summer of 1861. After the war, Captain Moore became one of the pioneer merchants and bankers of Benton. Here is a family in which the blood of sturdy pioneers has not run thin with the passing of time. One hundred and twenty years of Illinois citizenship finds them as useful as their forefathers were in the days when our state was being built in a wilderness. The vision to plan and the determination to accomplish are their attributes." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Mary Ann Hubbell December 1997