Early Scott County History

This is part of the Scott County Illinois website, which in turn is part of the Illinois and US GenWeb Projects. Here you will find an early history of Scott County. If you have corrections or suggestions to improve this page, or if you have Scott County-related resources that you would like to make available online but you lack the space or the expertise, please contact the County Coordinator at: [email protected].

In the years 1818 and 1819, in anticipation of the extinguishment of the title of the Indians, a number of men from the vicinity of Cahokia, Wood River, and Edwardsville, came on an exploring expedition up through this country, some of whom probably penetrated as far as the Sangamon River. Among them was Alexander Beall, who recently died near Exeter. He informed Dr. Roberts, that in 1819, when he traveled through this section, there was not a house or any other mark of civilization north of Apple Creek. Plenty of Indians were camped on the Mauvaisterre and Sandy Creeks, and now and then a creole French trader, one of whom had a shanty on the bank of the Illinois River, at what afterwards receivced the name of Phillips' Ferry.

In the year of 1819, a party of six men and the families of three of them, started from Casey County, Kentucky, for Illinois. The names of the men were Thos. Stevens, Jas. Scott, Alfred Miller, Thos. Allen, John Scott, and Adam Miller. The first three were young unmarried men, the last three had their wives and children with them. They came in an old fashioned Tennessee wagon, that resembled a flatboat on wheels. It was covered over with white sheeting, the front and rear bows set at an angle of forty-five degrees to correspond with the ends of the body, and then the enormous quantity of freight that could be stowed away in the hole . Women, children, beds, buckets, tubs, old-fashioned chairs, including all the household furniture usually used by our log-cabin ancestors: a chicken coop, with "two or three hens and a jolly rooster for a start," tied on behind, while, under the wagon, trotted a full-blooded, long-eared hound, fastened by a short rope to the hind axle. Without much effort on your part, you can, in imagination, see this party on the road, one of the men in the saddle on the near horse, driving; the other two, perhaps on horseback, slowly plodding along in the rear of the wagon, while the boys "walked ahead," with rifles on their shoulders "at half-mast" on the lookout for squirrels, turkey, deer, or "Injun." Arriving at Wood River in the vicinity of Alton, they secured log-cabins in the forks of the river for their families and remained until the fifth of January. And then, in their wagon, without their families, the six men started in search of the mound west of where the city of Jacksonville now stands. They were directed to this place by the Moores who described to them, in glowing colors, the beauties and the attractions of the country. A few years before, the Moores were among a party who chased the Indians over this mound. And, even then, afflicted as they were by the loss of their children by the tomahawk of the Indians whom they were following, the beauty of this mound, and the lovely prairies on either side of it, made a permanent impression upon their minds.

Arriving at old Dickey Rattan's, who was living in a log-cabin three miles south of the present site of White Hall, the last house upon the border of the settlement, they stopped over night. In the morning, leaving their wagon and taking with them the three horses, the six men pursued their journey. Their whole outfit consisted of three horses, three rifles, three axes, two or three blankets, and some little provisions. They kept north until they got a few miles beyond where Manchester now stands, where they veered off to the left. Old Peter Wagoner described to them the place where he shot an Indian and told them to look for his bones. Upon arriving at the place, Jas. Scott said, "sure enough there were the bones!." Near Manchester they also saw where two men the fall before (1819) had cut a considerable amount of prairie-hay. The fire had burned the cocks, but heaps of ashes indicated where they had stood. These two men were the first who ever attempted any kind of agricultural work within the present bounds of Scott County, but their names are unknown-they never returned!

But to proceed with our emigrants. Three of the party on horseback, with axes, and three on foot with rifles, they crossed in a northwesterly direction through the barrens, and emerged upon the prairie upon the north side of Sandy timber, and then, in the distance, to the right, they saw the grove and mound they were in search of. They crossed the prairie, and pitched their camp just west of where the town of Lynnville now stands, and where Wm. Gordon now resides. This was on the 8th day of January A. D. 1820.

The blanket-tent proving insufficient for protection, Allen proposed to build a regular camp. With an axe, the only implement brought along with us, except our rifles, he made a hand-maul and a wooden froe, and with these he rived good boards; some of them, for siding, were seven feet in length. During the month of February, he built himself a log-cabin-the first human habitation, other than the Indian wigwam and French huts, that was ever built within the present limits of Scott, Morgan or Cass counties.

After the completion of his log cabin, Allen went after his family, taking James Scott with him. While Allen was busy finishing up his cabin, about the last of February, Stephen M. Umpstead (Note�Judge Henderson has invariably spelled this name Umpstead while General Murray McConnell and other early settlers spelled it Olmstead. We do not know which is right.) arrived and went to work building his cabin on the northern slope of Allison's Mound. Allen's party heard the sound of an axe in that direction and knowing that this indicated the arrival of another settler, they followed up the sound until they came to where he was at work. Until this, neither party was aware of the presence of the other. Umpstead brought with him his wife, the first white woman of Anglo Saxon blood, who ever set foot in this part of the Sangamon country. All honor to this noble pioneer woman, who followed her husband to the wilderness, sharing with him the toils, dangers, and hardships, as well as adorning his home, humble as it was, with its clap-board roof and mud-daubed walls, with smiles, gladness, and sunshine that kings in their palaces might envy.

Mrs. Umpstead was not entirely deprived of female society, for, after supper, she could take her knitting and call on her nearest neighbor, Mrs. Dickey Rattan, who lived on Apple Creek, twenty-five miles due south of her residence.

In the month of April, Allen and Scott returned bringing with them the old Tennessee wagon, the household goods, a "kit" of carpenter tools (consisting of an ax, a froe, two augers, and two jack-planes), cows, pigs, poultry, and last, but not least, Sarah Allen, the first white woman who settled within the limits of what is now Scott County. Allen also brought with him the first plows; the irons were made down on Wood River, by Wm. Moore, a blacksmith, and Allen stocked them himself. The irons were not very cumbersome, for in those days a strip of iron from the point to the heel of the wooden mould-board was all of that material used in the manufacture of a plow.