ONE of the leading citizens of the county was George Cloud, the first County
Surveyor. Another was David Moore. Among the early Sheriffs was Mr. Perry,
an engineer on the river for a long time.
In a letter from John Dougharty (no relation of Gov. Dougherty) to Capt.
Riddle? dated America, October 12, 1824, occurs the following:
"This place (America) becomes more dull every day; we are about to lose
what few inhabitants there are in this county, and if we should lose the
whole of them it would be of little consequence, as the majority of them are
of no advantage to any county. Many families are going out and gone to the
South and "West, making about one-fourth of the whole; and those better
informed on the subject than myself calculate on as many more in their room.
May heaven send those of a better quality! I will have to turn to farming or
will have to look somewhere else for a living than off this miserable
population."
Commenting on this rather gloomy letter of Dougherty's, the Rev. Olmstead
says: "Heaven, alas! did not answer the prayer of John Dougherty. The
emigrants met no immigrants; every sail set to catch the breeze was
southward bound. "
Another letter from John Cloud to James Riddle, of Cincinnati, is dated
America, December, 1827: "I am glad to have the opportunity of informing
you that Mr. Skiles and Mr. Whipper safely landed their boat at thin town on
Wednesday last. The same evening Mr. Skiles came to my house and I told him
the situation of your lands. The next morning he went to Trinity to converse
with friend Webb. He will write you the substance of this conversation. They
have opened a store in this place in a house known by the name of Allord's
House, which I rented to them as agent of the Brownsville Bank. They will
live with me. Believing them to be gentlemen, I shall use the utmost of ray
endeavors to promote their interests, as well as the interests of this
place. After a cruel scene of inebriation, which commonly causes drowsiness,
this deserted place may awaken to that meridian of day that we may live to
see and rejoice at."
But no effort could arrest the decay and dry rot that had fixed upon the
drowsy young metropolis, and, as told elsewhere, it perished from the face
of the earth.
The writers of these letters from which we have given the above extracts,
together with David Moore, first Sheriff, James Berry and William Wilson,
merchants, are buried at the town of America. Capt. Riddle, Col. Justus Post
and John Skiles are buried at Caledonia. The reduction of the army at the
close of the war of 1812 had changed the occupation of Col. George Cloud,
Col. Justus Post, Col. E. B. Clemson and H. L. Webb, and was the cause of
each of these rather remarkable men of their day coming to Southern Illinois
and engaging in the avocations of agriculture and city building.
In the Cairo Argus of July, 1876, Reverend E. B. Olmstead, of Pulaski
County, says: "Each principal settlement had its school. Of course, at that
early day, they were subscription schools; but in the year 1825, the
Legislature appropriated money to pay one-half the salary of teachers. A man
named Mclntyre taught in a log schoolhouse north of the Clavin place, to
which scholars went from Caledonia, and among them the children of Capt.
Riddle; and from near Cache River, among whom was H. M. Smith, om* present
State's Attorney, the former having to walk three miles, the latter six
miles. There were no patent seats, no blackboards, no series of school
books; under such difficulties were the foundations o an education laid in
former days. Another of the early teachers was William Hazard, at Caledonia.
"About 1830, the price of wheat was from 20 to 60 cents per bushel; corn, 20
to 25 cents; bacon from 3" to 5 cents per pound; harvesters, 75 cents a day;
binders, 50 cents; and common laborers, 30 cents per day.
"As slavery was prohibited in the Northwest Territory, a system of
apprenticeship was adopted. The slaves of the original settlers might be
held ninety years, but their children were to be free at eighteen and
twenty-one years of age, but many living in Illinois on the Mississippi
River held their slaves absolutely, as citizens of Missouri, and crossed
them over once a week to preserve a legal title; in this way George Hacker
held forty slaves.
"No young lady," he says, in speaking of the good old times, "played on
the piano, but she could bring music out of the spinning wheel. Her
pull-back was a pull at the loom. The young women planted their own cotton,
cultivated it, picked and ginned it, spun and colored and wove it, and made
dresses without consulting Madam Demorest or Harper's Bazaar, and without a
sewing machine, and when the young man came around on the gay young horse,
with a new saddle and a broad breast girth, "to see the boys," he would
look approvingly on the striped and cross-barred superfluous and extra
dresses, and other feminine gear hung like banners on the inner wall, the
very proofs and evidence of industry and skill and genius. The girls of that
period were strong and healthy, and no one of them was ever known to faint
under any provocation whatever. They could sing treble, and some of them
could have, perhaps, sung bass. They knew nothing of falsetto, but could
bring the cows home in that key if they were half a mile away. The young men
did not aspire to become teachers or drummers, or try to make a fortune on a
capital of $4 in chromos, or to bang doors and slash around generally as
brakemen on a railroad train.
Settlements will never be made again in this country under similar
circumstances. Never again will there be so much danger and inconvenience
and patient waiting for coming improvements. The modern new settlement is
the goddess Minerva, fully armed, leaping from the head of Jupiter, and the
Vulcan whose glittering ax opens the head is the machinist's, who builds
that wonderful complication men call a locomotive. There is much difference
in the condition of things between the Atherton colony (one of the earliest
in Pulaski) and the Greeley colony as there is between history and fiction.
In speaking of the birds of the early day, Mr. Olmstead says: " The mocking
bird of the South made his first visits [here] during the war," etc. This is
a mistake evidently. The writer well remembers seeing them in abundance as
far north as St. Clair County as early as 1840. Mr. Olmstead is probably
misled by the fact that many were brought north by returning soldiers, and
many soldiers made quite an industry of catching them and bringing them to
Illinois to sell. The Carolina parrots or paroquets, in the early days, were
common and numerous all over Illinois, as far north, at least, as is now the
main line of the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad. Two varieties of birds unknown
to the early settlers, the wax, or cherry bird, so called from the wax-like
tips on the end of the wings and for their fondness for cherries, and the
bee bird, is another outcrop of modern life. Mr. Olmstead says: "We welcome
the mocking bird as a full compensation for our bee bird and cherry bird. He
builds his nests in the orchards and around our homes. He is many in one.
With a voice as mellow as a flute and as harsh as the call of a guinea fowl,
he imitates all the birds of the wood, and is the only songster that gives
us nightly serenades. We have all the birds common to the Northwest, from
the unclean buzzard down to the delicate humming bird; and truly the former
bird, though a scavenger and unseemly when near at hand, rises in our
estimation as he ascends into the heavens. No bird that spreads a wing can
lie as he does upon the air without beating it, and we see him sweep in such
majestic circles so high above the earth, we could wish he never would
return to it again; we would fain forget that he is only snuffing, like a
corrupt politician, for a more tainted atmosphere. The humming bird, when
stripped of his feathers, is little larger than a bumble bee. Starting from
the orange groves of Florida, he pauses at the open portal of every flower,
extracting honey or insects, as his taste inclines. To each degree of
latitude as high as the great lakes, and even to Hudson's Bay, he introduces
summer; but in all his migrations he never fails to exhibit before oui'
admiring eyes his ruby throat and golden shield,"
Of the Black Hawk warriors of Pulaski County, the same authority says: "In
1832, the celebrated Indian chief, Black Hawk, made war on the settlements
in the northern part of the State. Promptly a company was raised in our
county by Col. Webb, which went to the scene of action. Of that company none
are alive but the Captain, Thomas C. Kenedy, John Carnes and Alfred Lackey.
"The war with Mexico occurred in 1846. A company was raised immediately by
Col. C. H. Webb and William A. Hughes. The former was elected Captain and
the latter First Lieutenant. This company consisted of 105 men, the noblest
and best of our citizens. They were in but one engagement, etc. * * * By
changes and promotions, the company was officered thus on the day of battle
(Buena Vista): Captain, William C. Woodward; First Lieutenant, John
Bartleson; Second Lieutenant, Aaron Atherton; Third Lieutenant, William
Price. On that eventful day, Col. Bissell, riding up to where the Pulaski
company was posted, said to Lieut. Price: 'You are too old to go into this
engagement; you will remain in camp.' The old man, nearly eighty years of
age, standing proudly erect, said: 'Col. Bissell, I came here to fight. If
my time has come, I just want to die for my country on this battlefield.'
As the company went into action, Lieut. Atherton, observing that Capt.
Woodward had only a Sergeant's short sword, gave his to the Captain, saying,
'You can take this; I know better how to use a gun!' The last that
Metcalf, afterward Lieutenant, saw of Atherton, he was defending his
prostrate friend, Price. As he had often swung his cradle, so his heavy
rifle went in circles, wielded by his powerful arm, and many a Mexican went
down before him. The sword of Atherton, so faithfully used by Capt.
Woodward, and gashed on Mexican lances, is in the possession of the Atherton
family. Of the 105 men who went so gayly to Mexico, only forty-two returned.
Sixteen were killed in the battle of Buena Vista, including every officer,
from the Captain down to the Second Sergeant, and of the forty-two, fourteen
only now remain (1876). Among these are Joseph Evans, E. A. Philips, Lieut.
William Pate, Capt. A. P. Corder, A. C. Bartleson, Edward Bartleson, James
H. Metcalf, R. J. Johnson, G. P. Garner, Reuben Vaughan and John Abbott.
Among those who fell on the field were Capt. Woodward, First Lieut. John
Bartleson, Second Lieut. Aaron Atherton, Third Lieut. William Price,
Orderly Sergeant William J. Fayssoux, private J. W. Kiger, H. Dirk, George
Crippen and Joseph Emmerson. On their return in 1847, these men were
welcomed with demonstrations of joy at a public gathering, when speeches
were made and a poem read by J. Y. Clemson, of which we extract a couple of
stanzas, showing that while we had brave men, we had poets to sing their
praises:
"We lost some noble men that day —
Men that were stamped in nature's mould;
For fame and country those they
fell,
Not for the sordid love of gold.
"Conspicuous on that fatal day
Was a small band from Illinois,
Foremost
they were in all the fray.
The gallant, brave Pulaski boys."
The occasion and the home-like sentiment and truth the poet expresses are a
sufficient apology for any seeming tripping there may chance to be in the
verse, that at that time found a hearty response in every heart.
In the Adjutant General's office at Springfield, we find the following very
imperfect roster of this company. Like nearly all the rolls of the Mexican
war soldiers, it is not only wretchedly imperfect, but the company is
credited as the " place of enrollment, Alton, Ill.," because there was where
they were mustered, and no residence of the companies are given. This is an
outrage by the State upon the memories of those brave sons of Illinois, and
the State should by all means remedy the records, at least to that extent
that it could be done now by those who yet survive. If neglected a few
years, the wrong will be irreparable, and the very children of these men
will remain in ignorance of their illustrious sires. The writer has had
occasion to write the war record of several different companies that were in
the Mexican war, and invariably in talking with these old veterans in regard
to their company, he has found the Adjutant's books almost wholly
unreliable. For the State to longer neglect this would be a flagrant
injustice to the whole people.
Col. Foreman, the only surviving Illinois Colonel of that war, is now an old
man, residing in Vandalia, Ill. It would be a labor of love — and he is
eminently fitted for the work — to go into each county that sent a company
or companies to that war, and perfect the roster of each company, give the
correct residence of each man, and fill out a complete history of every man
that Illinois sent to that war. The band of surviving Mexican war soldiers
have not been any too handsomely remembered by their country. No pension
steals have gone into their pockets, and we know of no more appropriate act
the State Legislature could do than to commission Col. Forman to do this
work.
From the records in the Adjutant General's office we give the following as
all that appears of Company B, Second Regiment Illinois Volunteers:
Captain, Anderson P. Corder; First Lieutenant, John W. Rigby: Second
Lieutenant, William W. Tate and James M. Gaunt; Sergeants, Watho F. Hargus,
Abraham S. Latta, Calvin Brown and John Delaney; Corporals. John L. Barber,
Robert E. Hall, James Cuppin, and James H. Gorrell, Musicians, Andrew I.
Ring: Privates, John Abbott, William C. Anglin, Edwin BartleSon, Augustus
Bartleson, Abner Baccus, Welbourn Boren, John Barnett, Henry Burkhart,
William Crippin, Robert Cole, Jiles M. Cole, John Curry, Marion M. Davis,
Henry Doebaker, Joseph Evans, iller Echols, Daniel Emerick, Charles Goodall,
John Goodwin, Joseph B. Hornback, William Hughes, James M. Hale, Reason I.
Johnson, William Johnson, Elisha Ladd, James L. Loudon, Thomas E. Loudon,
Pleasant Lefler, Patrick H. McGee, James H. Metcalf, Enos A. Phillips,
George Purdy, Framnel Parker, John B. Russell, Pinkney Russell, John
Russell, David Renfrew, Jonathan Story, Columbus C. Smith, Calvin L. Scott,
Jackson Summerville, Elijah Shepherd, Cyrus Stephens, James Thorp, Andrew J.
Tiner, William E. Tiner, Isham L. Tiner, Thomas Thompson, Reuben Vaugh, John
White, William Whitaker, H. A. Young, died; Alfred Bakston, March 21, at
Saltillo; Thomas James, March 4, at same place; Enoch Kelso, at Loracco,
time not known. Discharged, Private John Kitchell, on Surgeon's certificate,
March 20; Abraham S. Latta, on detached service, hospital, September 29;
James H. Gorrell, absent, sick at Laracco, from August 11; William C.
Anglin, taken prisoner at Buena Vista; also at same time and place John
Curry and Joseph Evans. Wounded in this battle, Charles Goodall, absent,
sick at Loracco, from August 11; Calvin L. Scott, Elijah Shepherd, and
William Whitaker. Taken prisoner at Buena Vista, James Thorp.
The company was discharged from service at Camargo June 18, 1847.
In the late unfortunate civil war, Pulaski County, like all the counties of
Southern Illinois, was the first to enlist and the first and foremost in the
battles of the country.
Capt. William M. Boren raised Company K, of the One Hundred and Ninth
Regiment of which we have given the account in the Union County history in
this volume. Capt. Rigby's company was attached to the Thirty-first
Regiment. This was John A. Logan's regiment, and it was formed entirely of
Southern Illinois men. There were many other enlistments Id the county in
various regiments and in the naval service.
But of the three counties. Union, Alexander and Pulaski, the first, in the
matter of turning out fighters in the late war, was in the lead. In fact.
Union County is entitled to be considered the banner county of the State,
either in war or in voting for General Jackson straight at every election.
In the biographical department of this work will be found an extended sketch
of the life of J. Y. Clemson, whose fruit farm, near Caledonia, deserves
especial mention. This is the finest fruit farm on the Ohio River and it
produces pears, strawberries, peaches and small berries of all kinds that we
much question if in either of these it can be equaled in the world. The fame
of the fruits grown upon Mr. Clemson's farm is now all over the West and
South, both for the size of the fruit and the exquisite delicacy of flavor.
This farm is protected fi-om the frosts by the river and ^the hills, as is
much of Pulaski County, and a failure of crops has never occurred since the
settlement of this part of the county in 1817. Mr. Clemson has demonstrated
that much of Pulaski County possesses great advantages over almost any other
spot on the globe for horticultural purposes. That the yield per acre is
extraordinary, the quality and flavor perfect, and there never occurs a
failure of crops. In fact, at times when a killing frost had visited nearly
all portions of the country, this locality in the county has escaped
untouched. It is only of very late years that this has become to be known of
those heretofore despised lands of Pulaski County — the barrens. They were
supposed to be nearly worthless, whereas the truth is they are by far the
most valuable lands in the State, and it is the opinion of competent judges
that in a few years they will develop wonders in both agriculture and
horticulture.
| Union | Johnson | |
| Alexander |
 |
Massac McCracken KY |
| Ballard KY |
