About Mt. Zion > History

History

An excellent eye witness description of pioneer life on the prairie near Mt. Zion

Written in July of 1946 By Maria R. Smith (born - 1852)

AS I REMEMBER

My parents were not among the Early Pioneers when they came from Mt. Sterling, Kentucky in the late summer of 1855 to Decatur, Illinois. At that time Decatur was a small mud town, and remained that way for a good many years after we came. There were only a few side walks, and they were plank, and of course there were no paved streets. Where the Transfer House now stands, there was a well with watering troughs and hitching posts for the horses of farmers who came to town. We lived there about two years, then in 1857 moved to a farm, most of it raw prairie, about ten miles from Decatur, and five miles from Mt. Zion.

If my memory serves me, Mt. Zion was at that time called Wilson Post Office . Our nearest neighbor was two miles away. It was all open country, no hedges, no trees of any size, and we could see to the end of the world, where the earth and sky met. On three sides of our yard were rail fences, in front a low hedge of arbor vitae. Over this was a stile for the convenience of those who came on horse back. There was an orchard of three apple trees and four cherries.

Right back of the house was a stretch of prairie - I think about two hundred acres. it must have been spring when we moved, for it was a garden of wild flowers except for great ponds. One was filled with waterfowl - ducks, brants, and geese ... In the other were the waders, the long legged ungainly birds - the sand hill cranes, our favorites of the bird world at that time. They were our entertainers, and when they held their dances we were always uninvited guests on the rail fence. We admired the dancing very much, which was always accompanied with much ceremonious bowing. We tried to imitate some of their steps, but with very little success, as our legs and necks were short, and we had no wings.

There were Whooping cranes - not so many - and herons, white ones and dark ones. There were Bitterns that seemed to stay the year round, for almost any time they could be heard "pumping up thunder." There were curlew, stilts, rails, and plovers that seemed to congregate around this pond which was surrounded with reeds, coarse grasses, flags, rushes, and calamus. From the root of the calamus plant, mother sometimes made tea for our childish ailments. There were also many frogs, snakes, eels, and what the boys called " Craw Dads." The duck pond had a fringe of very small willow, and boasted the only tree, a small cottonwood. Around this pond we sometimes found shells, small fan shaped ones, either lavender or pink inside, spiral ones less than an inch long, and others like small snail shells. We never saw one with any living creature in it. On this pond at different times were to be seen Canada geese, white heads, and Brants - there were but few of them compared to those that passed over us, always in perfect V formation, and filling the air with their honking. These the boys shot for our own table use. They never killed any that rested on our pond - they were in sanctuary. Of ducks, there were Mallards, Red Heads, Fish Ducks, Grebes, and Die dippers.

We also had Loons, and their wild sad notes were almost human - their mournful cries always made me unhappy. The Sandhills, some of them at least, nested here, for one time, about 1859, we found one - a young one that could not fly, and promptly adopted him into our family of pets. He would follow the children around, but let a stranger come near and he would stick out his long neck and hiss like a snake.

We sometimes had a bird that was strange to this part of the world. One morning, in the spring of 1861, Father called for us to come out, that he had something to show us. There on the duck pond was the biggest bird we had ever seen, snow white, and sitting calmly among the diving, gabbling ducks. While we were watching, it raised its head and sent out the trumpet call. The clear, high notes seemed to linger in the air, and die away like an echo, and even before the last note died away, it was, without perceptible motion, up in the air, floating, not flying away. We stood, awe struck, watching it until it was lost in the rnists and white clouds of the morning. That was the first and last time I ever saw the Great Trumpeter Swan.

Another strange bird came to us in the night in a wind storm. It was one that looked like a loon, and had the same wild, sorrowful call, but it had wings that were only rudimentary, and seemed to be totally inadequate. The neighbors came to see it, and it seemed that each had a different theory about it. We kept it in a pen, fed and watered it, but it just sat in one corner, now and then sounding its wild call. One of our neighbors once said it was a "War Loon, " and an ornen of war or great misfortune - that it came with the wind and it would go with the wind. Right or wrong, one morning after another wind storm, our bird was gone and we never found any trace of it.

There were a great many prairie chickens in these two meadows. One could hardly step out in one and not hear a loud whir, and see one or more prairie chickens off in a wild flight. By this time, 1866, my brothers had begun to hunt chickens and quail commercially. There were so many of both, the loud drumming of the chicken and the whistled "Bob White" of the quail seemed almost constant. They would draw the birds, stuff them with grass, pack them in barrels and ship to a commission house in Chicago. Father did not use a gun, he had his own way of capturing them. He would locate a covey of quail, take his net - a long one, open at one end and closed at the other, held in place with hoops tapering from the open end to the closed one - and place this in the "quail run." Then with his cane and a willow branch, he would drive the whole bunch into the net. I never could understand why they did not fly, but they never did. If only one had started they would all have gone.

Other birds of which there seemed to be an inexhaustible supply were wild pigeons. I have seen the sky fairly darkened by them in their flight. They were countless. My brothers never, so far as I can recall, killed them commercially, but we ate them a great many times. We had Pigeon Pot Pie, and that, as our mother made it, was an epicure's dream and a chef's envy. When I was quite small, I have seen the hunters making lead bullets. They had a mould into which they poured the melted lead, and it came out a round shining ball. Their shot guns were "muzzle loaders." In later years, they had 'breech loaders," and the loads came in shells. Then came the time when the ditchers got busy, our ponds were drained, and our feathered friends no longer came to visit us. But still we could see vast hordes of them passing over us. Year by year they grew fewer. About this time, the chickens and quail seemed plentiful, my brothers stopped hunting commercially, about 1879, and killed for sport and home consumption only.

One day they came in bringing a white owl, a wanton killing, for we could not eat it. I think this is what decided my sister and I to learn taxidermy. We bought a book on the subject, and became quite expert at it. When they brought in a rare bird, we were able to mount it. A white quail, the only one we ever saw, we sent to Chicago. The largest bird we ever mounted was an eagle. We mounted several Horned Owls, Screech Owls, and Prairie Owls, but as that was when every bonnet had to have a feather or o bird, our work was mostly in small birds for millinery purposes.

We never attempted to mount animals. They were not so plentiful either by that time, tho in an earlier day there were many foxes, raccoons, minks, muskrats, weasels, and some deer. I saw but one good sized herd of deer, and that was in our earliest years, probably about 1858, when we took one of our infrequent trips across the prairie.

There was no road, only a few grass grown ruts showing that some one had been through it before us. We were on our way to Dalton City, it is now, then we called it Ireland. It was a most exciting trip to us children. A mother skunk trailed across the faint trail in front of us followed by her kittens - the most beautiful ones we had ever seen. My sisters and I wanted to stop and get one, but mother thought we had enough pets, since we had several cats, a pack of hounds, several bird dogs, a coon, a crow, and our crane "Moses, " so called because found in the bullrushes, a jay bird, canaries, and last but not least a frog that became the color of anything he sat upon for any length of time. He would sit happily in our laps, to be tickled with a blade of grass, or a feather, usually with his eyes shut, but let a fly come near, and a long tongue would pop out, and the fly was gone.

An Irishman who lived with us, assured us he was not a frog really, but a Leprechaun, and only became a frog by day, and we believed him, for wasn't he just over from the home of the "little people," and he had seen and talked with them? He told us many stories of his adventures with them, and we felt sure that the only reason for our "Frog Leprechaun" being with us was because it had followed Pat to this country. That fairies danced on our lawn we know, because he showed us the fairy ring, where he said he saw them in their revels, and maybe he did. We never did, though we often watched for them. We had not the "seeing eye."

There were a great many snakes - Blue Racers, Black Snakes, Garter or Grass snakes, Rattle Snakes (many of them), Adders (a small kind), ]Puff adders, an ugly brown creature, and Cotton Mouth (found along streams). I think only the last three were considered poisonous, but they all looked equally dangerous to me. All these I have seen, but one kind I have often heard of - never seen - was a hoop snake. In the stories, it had a horn on its head and carried its venom there. It would come rolling down a hill, (we had no hills, so were reasonably safe) and the victim it got its eye on was lost. It always got its man, struck with its horn, and whether man or beast it was instant death. I am not vouching for the truth of this, as I never really saw anyone who ever saw one, but knew someone, who knew someone whose aunt or uncle, grandmother or what have you, had seen one.

Of insect pests there were many kinds in those long ago days - Locusts, Grasshoppers, Fleas, Gnats, (small and all equally vicious), many kinds of flies, and mosquitoes in swarms. But the year the Army Worms came was the worst. We stood on our stiles and watched the moving horde. It seemed the whole earth was one brown, moving mass. I can still hear my Father saying "Before them was the Garden of Eden, behind them the Valley of Desolation." They took every green thing in their path, corn fields were devastated. We had a field of flax that year. It was a beautiful sight, a wide blue sea of bloom. This they did not touch, the only thing they spared. Whether it was left because they admired it, or just didn't like flax, I don't know, but we were glad that for whatever cause, it was left for us. Our garden was a wreck. Just across the road from us was a grove of small locust trees, hazel brush, raspberry and blackberry vines, wild grapes, plum trees, and several kinds of wild gooseberries. Around the locust trees, I have seen the insect or whatever it is, called by us the Devil's Darning Needle, lying piled high upon their trunks, and around the base of the trees, some green, some brown, some two or three inches long. Though there were such vast swarms of them, I could not see that they injured the trees. I never saw them in such numbers in the other trees. They seemed perfectly harmless, but we didn't like their looks. There were also a great many of those singular creatures, the Praying Mantis. I haven't seen one in many years.

In speaking of cranes, I forgot to mention that now and then my brothers killed one, a sandhill, and then we would have crane steak. The breast of the bird only was used. It was floured and fried like chicken, or broiled. We had a grill that just fit across the front of our stove. Wood was our only fuel, mostly hickory. A fine bed of coals would be made, the steak placed upon the grill and browned and turned constantly until thoroughly done. Seasoned with salt and pepper, with melted butter poured over this, and served hot, it compared favorably with the very best grade of beef steak.

They tell me that the wise acres say that we old people are wrong when we tell stories of our long ago winters. Well, we may be, but if we are, the Pioneer was a tenderfoot compared to the people of today. They, the Pioneers, would go out clad in flannel or cotton flannel long underwear, flannel shirts, jeans trousers, wool socks, (or heavy cotton), brown felt water-proof boots, wool scarf, pulse warmers (also called wristiets), jeans coat, caps with ear flaps - (all these with the exception of boots and cap, were home made)- and come in with ears, noses, and sometimes feet and hands frost bitten. They had wool mittens, hand knit, too.

Our chickens froze in the chicken house - of course it wasn't heated with electricity, but was a good sensible one at that. We had no electricity for the house, candles were our lights. My mother made three kinds. One was called tallow dips, one was made of bees wax and tallow, the first the men used in the lanterns, the others were for the house, and a very special kind were Bayberry. These were a beautiful green, and when lighted gave off a delicious odor. Later we had coal oil lamps which did not smell so good but gave a better light. To keep the wicks of these trimmed straight, so the lamp chimneys would not get smoked, was a serious job. We had snuffers for the candle wicks.

Among the animals I heard people tell of as being here, were wolves, both Timber and Prairie, but I never saw one. A tin peddler, who used to come along now and then, knowing our fondness for pets, offered to get us one, a tame one, but no, we did not care to have a wolf. We knew about little Red Riding Hood! Seven or eight miles from our home, my father and uncles owned a belt of timber where they got their fire wood and rails. In this timber were a great many squirrels, red and gray, and now and then wild turkeys. I think these came from much further away, from a quite large tract of timber. When the turkeys were there so were the hunters.

I will just mention in passing, that tho we had many rails split, not one of them was by Abraham Lincoln. The road called Lincoln Highway was only a short distance away, and it seems he might have given us a break when he was splitting rails everywhere else, but he never did. I am afraid if he had, unless his name was on it, we would not have known it from the ones our regular splatters made.

In those days, it was not unusual to see a wagon, with a white canvas top drawn over hoops, on the road. They often stopped at our place, sometimes for only a few hours, sometimes for days. They would camp out in our "orchard," and let their poor, tired, dejected looking horses and the cow they usually had tied on behind the wagon, rest, and graze on our lush meadows. No one was ever denied that privilege. They were going somewhere, they did not always seem to know where, but always with the hope of some dark skinned men, who carried a shelf arrangement on their heads filled with plaster of paris figures. They traveled on foot with their wares. We thought the little figurines were the most beautiful things in the world. They had cats, dogs, and other animals, and always the Holy Mother Mary and the infant Jesus. They always came thru in the summer, and always looked footsore and weary, as tho they had traveled a long way. They too were fed, and allowed to sleep in the haymow in the barn, or the stack in the barnyard. Never did I know of one who ever imposed in any way, or was ungrateful. They spoke very broken English, and most of their talking was done with their hands.

The strangest of all the animals I ever saw, was the prehistoric earthworm our neighbor found in his yard. It was eighteen feet long, and about as big around as a lead pencil. I have often heard the story told, and stretched considerably. These earthworms are quite elastic, but the official measurement at the time it was found, eighteen feet - long enough for any worm that wanted to turn. A Dr. Bridgeman, at that time our Dr. in Mt. Zion, put the worm in a jar of preservative, and had it in his office for many years. At his death, a druggist in Decatur, Mr. Swearingen, got it. After his death, I heard it went to the High School, the old one. When the new one was built, it seems to have been lost in the moving, or perhaps it had just, in this length of time, disintegrated, but the story lives on.

I have heard much about the hardships of the early settlers. No doubt they had many, but that they lived almost exclusively on salt pork and corn bread, doesn't sound quite reasonable. The country was full of game, and I am sure there was not one of these but had fire arms of some sort. They did not venture to enter a new country without them. It goes without saying that they had hunting dogs. And what did they do with the rest of the hog? It certainly had ham, shoulder, and other cuts of meat. The Early Settlers knew how to cure it. At the present time, it seems to be almost a lost art. We had salt pork, and it was good. Corn bread - no one seems to know how to make it any more. We also had ham, bacon, smoked sausage, pickled pork, corned beef, dried beef, smoked tongue, and sausage packed in stone crocks, cooked in the oven until done, covered with fresh lard, and sealed. Also, we had pickled pig's feet, Liver wurst, head cheese, and if there was anything else that could be made We had any vegetable that could be raised in this climate.

Mother never heard of vitamins I am sure, but we got them. Everything that would keep, she canned. She canned tomatoes, peaches, plums, and cherries. These were canned in brown or yellow stone jars with tin tops. These were sealed with a red sealing wax. Each top was gone over carefully with a flat piece of hot iron, to be sure no air vents were left. We had cabbage, turnips, beets, and bushels of apples in our fruit cellar. We had pumpkins, dried and fresh, and delicious dried corn. There has not yet been any way of preserving discovered, that keeps this savor. The frozen variety comes nearest. We had nuts in quantities, hickory, walnut, and Hazel nuts that we gathered ourselves. Also, we had milk, cheese, and eggs in abundance. No, those 'Old Timers' may not have known vitamins, but they knew good eating. As all of our neighbors, some of them very early settlers, lived the same way, I feel that it is safe to say there is very little basis for the 'salt pork and cornbread' story. Or else they lived that way because they preferred to.

When one starts to write or speak of those by- gone days, it is hardly possible to know where to begin or where to end. One gifted in writing could make a readable story, for they too were wonderful days, and made possible all the wonders of the present age. I have lived through both, and have seen the things which were but dreams become reality. Memory, in its swift review, goes back over the long ago years, and the past becomes as real as the present. The present age will never know the wonder and delight at each new finding, that we, who were here at this first inception, knew. They have grown up with this, the now common place objects of everyday living. Perhaps there are greater wonders in store for them. Man was given, in the beginning, dominion over the Earth, and the birds of the sky. Many of the birds have been eliminated, and man has usurped this Kingdom. Decatur, the little mud town of my early days, has grown into a city, and now claims the proud title of "The Soy Bean Capital" of the world.