CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

HAMILTON COUNTY

P. 475 FIRST SETTLERS—

JUDGE STELLE’S PIONEER PICTURES—

WHICH RECTOR WAS MASSACRED ?—

TOWN OF McLEANSBORO—AS TO EDUCATION—

JAMES B. CAMPBELL—GENERAL INFORMATION

       Hamilton was created out of White by action of the general assembly on February 8, 1821. It was named in honor of Alexander Hamilton. Its area is 432 square miles, and its population in 1910 was 18,227, a loss in ten years of 1,970.

FIRST SETTLERS

       The first settlers in Hamilton county came as early as 1816, but the territory was then included in White county. David Upton seems to have been the first settler. He located about six miles southwest of the present city of McLeansboro, on what is called Knight’s Prairie. Among the names of early settlers were Head, Hardester, Hungate, Schoolcraft, Daily, Mayberry, Biggerstaff, Bond, Lockwood, Carpenter, and others. A. M. Auxier was an early settler, possibly earlier than Upton. Auxier settled on and gave name to Auxier Creek in the northern part of the county.

JUDGE STELLE’S PIONEER PICTURES

       The early life of the settlers has been described by Judge Thompson B. Stelle. He tells how the settlers lived, how they made their meal by pounding corn in a ‘hominy mortar,” which was a hollow place burned in the side of a log. The pestle with which they pounded the corn was attached to a spring pole which lifted it after each stroke. “Johnny cake” and “corn dodgers” were the staff of life. Johnny cakes were baked on a board placed before the fire, while dodgers were baked in the hot ashes and coals. The meat was venison and bear meat. Buckskin clothing was a very common article.

       Here, as elsewhere, log cabins were the first homes. Timber was plentiful along the streams, among which the principal one was the North Fork of the Saline River. This stream runs southeastward through the county. The country, especially along the streams, swarmed with small animals which were killed for their furs or for their flesh, though others were harmful, such as panthers, foxes, wolves, catamounts, etc. The farmers went to Equality for their salt, and to the Wabash for their milling. P 476
 
ATTRACTIVE ARCHITECTURE,
McLEANSBORO, HAMILTON COUNTY


       [The building on the right was the bank and the one on the left was the bankers residence which is now McCoy library]

WHICH RECTOR WAS MASSACRED?

       The Indians were plentiful as late as the coming of the earliest settlers. A story is told in Reynold's ‘‘Pioneer History’’ of the narrow escape of Nelson Rector who was surveying on Saline river. He was shot through the arm and in the side, but his horse carried him safely away. It is also said that the records of the county—the surveyor’s field book—contains this: “John Rector died May 25, 1805, at the section corner of Sections 21, 22, 27 and 28; buried from this corner, South 62º, west 72 poles; small stone monument; stone quarry northwest 150 yards.” This purports to be the records and if so there is some discrepancy in names. The one killed, according to Reynolds, was Nelson in 1814; the one said to be on record was John. Tradition has it that John Rector was massacred by the Indians.

TOWN OF McLEANSBORO

       In the act creating the county of Hamilton, the commissioners to locate the capital of the county were to meet at the house of John Anderson till a permanent seat of justice was selected. On April 9, 1821, the first county commissioners’ court was held in the house of John Anderson. The first act was to appoint Jesse C. Lockwood county clerk. The court then received the report of the commissioners who were to select the county seat. The commissioners had selected the present site of McLeansboro. It was on land donated by Wm. B. McLean and the county seat was named McLeansboro.

       The court house built in McLeansboro was of logs, sixteen feet square, eight feet high, one window, one door, covered with clapboards. The county court met in the new capital on Monday, June 4, 1821.

       The first residences of the town of McLeansboro were built of logs. The first frame house was built by Jesse C. Lockwood. The first doctor P 477 was Wm. B. McLean, and the first lawyer was Samuel S. Marshall. Mr. Marshall came to be the most noted politician, judge and lawyer in all Southern Illinois. He lived to a ripe old age and died in McLeansboro in 1890.

       Following the organization of the county, settlers came in large numbers but they were mostly farmers. The county seat grew but there were no other towns of any importance in the county till the coming of the railroads. At present the population is largely rural. McLeansboro has a population of 1,796, Dahlgren 654, Macedonia 200, Broughton 470, Belle Prairie 87.

AS TO EDUCATION

       The people of Hamilton have always taken an interest in education. Of course in an early day the whole matter was in an undeveloped stage and meager results were obtained, but the people were patient and persevering and now the interest and work is of a high grade. The first school house in the county was the oft-described log structure 12 by 14 feet and stood near the present depot in McLeansboro. There was only a dirt floor, and the room was heated by a fire in one corner with a hole in the roof for a chimney. The second and the third schools were of logs. The schools of today are well organized under the oversight of Whitson W. Daily as county superintendent. There is but one well organized high school, that of McLeansboro, but there are seventy-eight rural and village schools.

       The Catholic church maintains a flourishing school at Piopolis, a small village six miles north of McLeansboro. A college known as Hamilton College was in operation in McLeansboro from 1874 to 1880. It graduated several students. It was chartered and would have flourished but a quarrel as to the location of the college buildings blasted the enterprise and it closed its doors in 1880.

JAMES R. CAMPBELL

       Probably the most widely known citizen of the county is the Hon. James R. Campbell. He comes of a noted family of Scotch-Irish. Educated at Notre Dame, Indiana, member of the bar, served in the legislature, member of congress, colonel of the Ninth Illinois Volunteers in the Spanish-American war, and since a prominent lawyer and business man.

GENERAL INFORMATION

       The distribution of values on the farms for the entire county is as follows: Land 70.5%; buildings 12.1%; implements and machinery 2.4%; domestic animals, poultry, etc., 14.1%. The average value of land in 1900 was $15.64; in 1910 $34.32; average for the state in 1910, $95.02.

       There are ten banks in Hamilton county; three in McLeansboro; three in Dahlgren; one in Broughton; two in Macedonia, and one in Walpole. There is no mining, and no factories of any very great importance.

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