Found this in DWCGSQ Sprint 1983 Vol. IX No. 1. Though you all would enjoy. Mentions a couple of lost cemeteries. GHOST TOWNS OF DEWITT COUNTY ILLINOIS by Fern Lane Briggs (The following speech was prepared by Fern Briggs and presented at a recent Old Settlers Reunion.) When I was asked to give this talk today, my answer was, "No!" I am not a speaker and you will most likely agree with me before I am finished. First of all, let me introduce myself. I am Fern Lane Briggs, Editor of the column "Kinfolk Korner." which appears in three local newspapers, The Clinton Journal, The Farmer City Journal and the Focus section of the Decatur paper. I am a native of DeWitt County; my forefathers settled in the Rock Creek area in 1830. They were Tillmon and Margaret (Lyon) Lane. My talk is to be on the ghost towns of DeWitt County. You will see on the poster that I have prepared that only three are actually shown as ghost towns, but there are many more; some I have located and some I haven't. Franklin The village of Franklin once stood at the site of the old Pastime Park. The beginning of Franklin, as near as can be determined was in 1838, when James and Melville Lowery settled in Section 2 of what is now DeWitt County, where they built a water mill. At first this mill was equipped only as a saw mill, but was converted so as to grind both corn meal and wheat flour. These articles of food, a necessity, and in great demand by the early settlers, were ground by means of stone "burrs" made from rock secured along Salt Creek and shaped and fashioned into workable condition by hand. The first mill was in operation until 1844, when an unusually high water washed it, dam and all, away, completely destroying the building and raining most of the machinery. But the Lowerys were not to be disheartened and at once rebuilt the structure, bigger and better than ever. The big trouble was that old Salt Creek had the a habit of going on a "rampage" quite frequently and, although the Lowerys were good machine operators, they seemed to be unable to build a dam that would "stay put” and after repeated "washouts" they became disheartened and sold their business to Levi Davenport. Mr. Davenport operated the mill only a short time when he sold to John H. Morrison. This was sometime around 1850; and in 1854 James A. Kirby, a native of Ohio, came to Illinois and located at what was already known as Franklin. Here he built a small building with living rooms above. His was the third, and also the last, store building to be built in this village. Besides this store, which also happened to be the first post office in Tunbridge Township, Franklin also boasted of a blacksmith shop and a school house. While the other buildings were of frame construction, the school house was of logo, cracks between them were not chinked, and school was only held in mild weather. The names of the first two merchants were William Barbee and James W. Armstrong, and the blacksmith shop was owned by J. Q. Burgett. The town of Franklin began to “fade away and die" when the village of Kenney was started and several of the buildings were moved to the new village. The mill remained and the little post office was not done away with until the late 1880's. The first store to be moved to the new town of Kenney was the Barbee store, then the blacksmith shop, Mr. Morrison himself operated the Armstrong store for a short time while the other Morrisons--George, Harry and Ira ran the mill. After the decline and fall of the village of Franklin the historic old picnic ground "Pastime Park," came into being. This was somewhere in the 1880's it became a spot widely and favorably known. I feel that the story of Pastime Park deserves to go down in history as a "ghost town," too; even though it was not a town, it was a place which had much history about it that needs to be preserved. Zabriska This little village was located in Section 22 of Wapella Township. The first church built in Wapella was a Christian church at Zabriska, which was still standing during the 1880's, and possibly later. It was located so near St. Patrick's Catholic Cemetery north of Wapella that unless one knew, they would assume it was a Catholic church. The first post office in Wapella Township was operated from the private residence of Abraham Swearingen in 1845 but the service was moved to Zabriska in 1849. William Rolofson constructed the first saw mill at Zabriska in 1843. It had a small circular saw and was run by horse power. It had disappeared from the scene long before 1880. Wapella was not surveyed until the autumn of 1854, and the lots were sold in the spring of 1855. By 1891 the village of Zabriska was called Long Point. It has never been determined how the name of Zabriska came about. Swisher The G. B. Lemen and Isaac Swisher families arrived in Harp Township Section 2 in 1836. Other related families and friends soon followed. The area later known as Swisher was originally called the "Lemen Settlement.” Thomas Wilson, of Maryland, erected the first saw mill in Section 2 that same year near the present old Swisher Hill Bridge. In 1840, he added a burr for grinding corn. There was no bridge at Swisher Hill until after the turn of the century. The first schoolhouse was taught in the Lemen Settlement by John Dougherty, who it was said was too lazy to do manual labor so he called himself a teacher. His students later said that he could not distinguish a q from a p or a b from a d. South of the settlement approximately one-half mile is an early burial grounds now overgrown and nearly obliterated, where interments were made even before the permanent settlement in 1836. It was known as Lemen Cemetery. Solomon Despain., a Baptist minister who first settled near Waynesville, came to Lemen Settlement in 1837 and set up a blacksmith shop about halfway between Swisher Hill and the later established Swisher School. Until the 1920's the mile of road between Swisher Hill and the Swisher School had six turns in it. One turned south at the top of the hill, continued for several yards and then turned-east. If one desired to go south, instead, that curve to the west was called "Smoky Row.” In 1860 a Mr. Leonard erected a blacksmith shop near the crest of the hill, not far from Tom Wilson's mill. When school, districts were organized and schools were every two miles apart, the school east of Lemen Settlement, was named for the Swisher family, and gradually the immediate area became known as "Swisher." Prior to 1900 Jeremiah Curl operated a store there. The residents of the neighborhood came there to pick up their mail, which was brought in from other points by Frank Merrifield. He was the father of Harry Merrifield, Pauline Merrifield, Mrs. Zula Thorp, Gladys Ives, Hallie McKinley, Rebecca Coons, and Earl Merrifield. Around 1906 a cobbler shop was operated by John Walker and his brother William Walker, who had a blacksmith shop there. Their mother was a Mrs. Brady, and they lived where Herman Short now owns. All three are buried at Walters Cemetery. Jonathan Swisher lived across the road from the school (north) and was along in years when, he married a Swedish woman, much younger, and her daughter attended the nearby school. At the crest of the Swisher Hill, was a grocery store owned by Lew Taylor; his father, Samuel Taylor, lived in a-house to the north of a long lane. That house has been gone for many years. Fred Smalley, who lived at the-bottom of Carter Hill west of Salt Creek, bought out Lew Taylor's stock about 1914 and rented the building. Due to a disagreement over the rent Smalley moved the inventory to a mall building across the road from his house north at the bottom of Carter Hill. This was the last business place in this settlement, and it ended by 1920. The town of Swisher had a post office from 1886 until 1905. Solomon I could write a book on the things that I personally remember about the Solomon area when I was growing up, but they would not give you the history--just pranks that my brothers and sisters, along with our friends and schoolmates pulled. Since this is supposed to be the history of the community, I will try to stick to that today. I had to call on several old timers of the neighborhood for my facts. In the different interviews, I found a few discrepancies, but you will get a good picture of what Solomon once was. In the American Aerial County History series published in 1955, I found the following: The only community of Wilson Township on the north border of DeWitt County is the hamlet of Solomon, with a population of 51. It is situated in the midst- of a level fertile farming region. The township in which Solomon is located has a present population of 335. Among early settlers in the township were Thomas and Edward Wilson, brothers, who came in 1834. Another of their brother arrived in 1837. Other settlers were Jacob Walters, John Lash, John Guittman and Michael Troutman. William Wilson was the first justice of the peace. Dr. Moran was the first blacksmith, Jacob Weaters was the first shoemaker, and for many years made the boots and shoes for the settlers for miles around. Wilson Township was settled shortly after 1830 and that area received the name of Solomon in the following way. An early settler by the name of Samuel Franklin Merrifield had a store across from the old tile factory now owned by Ray Johnson, just east of the present home of Donald Dunlap in Wilson Township. This was the site of the first Solomon store, and it was used as a post office also. Mr. Merrifield wrote to Springfield to see if the area could be named Merrifields, so the post office could have a name and an addressed. The officials wrote back that there was already a settlement in Illinois with the name of Merrifield, but that it could officially be called Solomon. Later the store was moved to the area near the T- road just south of the Walden Cemetery. At-one time there was a library in the store, and I understand that a lady in Clinton Illinois, has one book that came from that library. One store owner pulled teeth at $.10 a tooth, and another charged a fee for legal advice rendered. (I haven't learned who these men were.) People that ran the Solomon store through the years were (they may or may not be in succession). Park Gardner, Robert Emery, Solomon P. Merrifield, Kenny Van Deventer, a Mr. Dolly, Ira Emery, Clarence Price, Jake Harrold, W. E. Walden, James Yones, E. G. 'Mike" Walden, Hugh Stapleton, Jack Clemons, Coy Torbert, D. W. Vanpotten, and Marie Lane (wife of Chelsa Lane). When Jake Harrold owned the store in 1918, my grandfather Jack (or J. P.) Lane, drove a wagon loaded with groceries through the neighborhood for Mr. Harrold, to accommodate those people that couldn't always get to the store. Grandpa Lane also owned a pool hall across the road from the store; he later sold it to a blind man by the name of Lon Walden. Stories are that he was doing a flourishing business, but the congregation of the Rucker Chapel Church objected so strongly that Mr. Walden burned it to the ground without removing any of the furnishings or his inventory. Rumors are that $1100.00 worth of candy burned. Harvey Wilson owned the first blacksmith shop also across the road from the store. Other owners were Winfond Kanser, Tom Payton, Henry Peavler, Gordon Worthy, Lee Kelley and Bill Peavler, a son of Henry. Again, I can't say that the names given are in the order of ownership. When Henry Peavler had his blacksmith shop it stood on the same side of the road as the store, and his house stood just a few yards south and west of the shop. The Solomon store has been in four locations: first in Section 13 before 1860; second in Section 24 about 1860; third in Section 25 about 1875; fourth in Section 26. I don’t know when it was built, but Jake Harrold was in the fourth location in 1918. Albert Bray dug a hole with a bulldozer in September 1966 and buried Solomon. That old store, probably from the time of its first existence, was for many years the meeting place for all the men for miles around. They would gather there winter and summer to swap yarns, each one trying to tell a bigger one than the man before him. Robert Emery lived on the east side of the road and had a Farmers Exchange telephone. He also went to DeWitt once a week to pick up the mail and used his home as a post office. At the present time the only thing left standing to show that a town was once there is the old hitching rack on the east side of the road. One more thing that I feel is very important in Solomon history is the many rugs woven on that big old loom by Mrs. Carter, the first house on the north side of the road on top of Carter Hill. How fascinating it was to watch her weave those beautiful rugs. I parted with my last one when I left Chicago in 1976, and it was used constantly from 1932 to 1976. I believe my husband's sister may still have one that I gave her, probably in the year of 1932. And last, but not least, was the swimming hole on my great-grandfathers farm. Everybody called it "Dinky Lane's Bottom." I think some of the Carter family now own it. I could go on and on, but my time is running out. I was asked to give a short talk, not to take up the whole day. Bob Halsey [email protected] Viera, FL