Robert Appleton wrote: > Nora, > Nothing in the alphabetical listings. > In the history portion, under early settlers > of Hillsboro Township (pages 884-885), after talking about Clear Springs > Church > being second church in the county (after one at Hurricane, near present > Van Burensburg): > > "While Clear Springs settlement was the first settlement in the county, > it was only a few months after then that Joel Smith and > David Kirkpatrick settled about where Hamilton was laid out was laid out." > (Hamilton was "about two and a half miles further southwest" -- page 863) > > And then the next paragraph "Among the early settlers, other than those > above mentioned, especially those particularly connected with the early > history > of the town of Hillsboro, were Robert Mann, brick kiln owner; John Marshall, > same business; Mark Rutlege, tavern keeper; C. B. Blockburger, tavern keeper > and > tin shop keeper; ..." > > Rob Appleton > [email protected] > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Edward Tocus" <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 3:05 PM > Subject: Re: [ILMONTGO] STARR > > > > > Thanks very much, Ron, for your thoughtfulness. Actually I do have the > information > > but am nonetheless grateful to you for thinking of me. David Monroe Starr > (my > > gg-grandfather) was the son of David Badgley Starr (my ggg-grandfather). > I visited > > both graves last month. > > > > Tell me this---do you have anything in your bag of tricks on Benjamin > Blockburger? > > He was a Hillsboro boy who went West about 1860 and did well there. He > was the > > boyhood pal and war buddy of David Badgley Starr's half-brother Wiley B > Smith. > > Wiley kept a diary of his service in the Mexican War and now a historical > society > > wants to publish the diary and has asked me for information about Wiley. > All I know > > of him post-war is that he was residing with Ben in California as of 1907 > when he > > made a visit to Hillsboro---Grandpa Starr wrote about this in a ledger. > > > > Wiley's father was Joel Smith, a pioneer ca 1820 and charter member of the > Hurricane > > Church---there's probably nothing about him---at least I sure can't find > much.. But > > there might be something on Blockburger. Thanks so much. Nora Tocus > > <[email protected]> > > > > > > ==== ILMONTGO Mailing List ==== > > The RootsWeb Genealogical Data Cooperative is supported by its users: > > RootsWeb would cease to exist if not for the support of folks like you. > > By becoming a Member, Sponsor, or Donor, you help RootsWeb provide Web > > and FTP space on thousands of genealogical topics, mailing > > lists for thousands of groups of genealogists with shared interests, and > > search engines to make huge amounts of genealogical data freely > > available to Internet genealogists.Become A Rootsweb Sponser Today! > > http://www.rootsweb.com/ > > > > ============================== > > Personalized Mailing Lists: never miss a connection again. > > http://pml.rootsweb.com/ > > Brought to you by RootsWeb.com. > > > > > > ==== ILMONTGO Mailing List ==== > Montgomery County Genealogical Society was formed in 1978 and its holdings are > housed at the Litchfield Carnegie Public Library in Litchfield. > P.O. Box 212, Litchfield, IL 62056-0212 > > ============================== > Search ALL of RootsWeb's mailing lists in real time. > RootsWeb's Personalized Mailing Lists: > http://pml.rootsweb.com/ Rob, that is wonderful---and it's a passage I didn't have. I am so involved with these folks. Joel Smith was third husband of Elizabeth Badgley Starr Titsworth Smith. In 1797 at the age of 18 she had come from Hardy CO VA with her father Reverend David Badgley and his party of 154 people, half of whom died of some epidemic disease. He survived to establish the first Protestant church in the Western Territories. I descend from her first marriage, to John Starr (who died, as did her second husband, Abraham Titsworth). Her third was Joel Smith and they probably started out in St. Clair CO, where she had returned to her father's home after Titsworth's sudden death when they ran away in a pirogue canoe with her eight or nine months pregnant and went downriver to Arkansas where she gave birth to Ezekiel Titsworth (later a Montgomery CO minister). I read that Joel Smith intended starting a salt works in Bond CO and that they went there in 1817. . I also read that the Indians were especially menacing in Bond CO in 1817 so perhaps that's why they moved on to the Hurricane settlement in 1818---Joel Smith is listed as one of the first members of that church. They then moved westward to the Clear Springs community where the church was formed in 1822. The first minister of Clear Springs Church was Reverend James Street, my gggg-grandfather, who was "lettered out" of Hurricane to start the Clear Springs Church. Street's daughter Jane married David Badgley Starr (Elizabeth's son of first marriage) in 1825. Now all are buried at Clear Springs Cemetery: Reverend James Street, his wife Mary Newton Street, Mary's mother Elizabeth Newton, Jane Street, David Badgley Starr, several of their children, and several of their grandchildren, and lots of others allied by kinship and marriage. The uproar over the location of the new Montgomery County seat also involved my family, I wonder if maybe in a not-nice way, since James Street was on the selection committee and the new town was to be on land owned by his son-in-law-to-be, David Badgley Starr. The deal fell through, Hillsboro went elsewhere, and the original site is now nothing at all, known as Woodboro. Clear Springs Church still stands but is inactive now for some years. The cemetery is maintained by an association in which Carol Berry <[email protected]> is instrumental as a near neighbor of church and cemetery. In later years a pastor who often preached there was Reverend Larkin Craig (1793-1881), another of my grandfathers (his daughter Frances Craig married David Monroe Starr s/o David Badgley Starr and Jane Street. Larkin Craig had served as State Senator from Bond-Macoupin-Montgomery from 1832-37. As a young child I found his collapsible tall silk Senator hat in the basement of his granddaughter, my great-grandmother born Jane Starr. David Badgley Starr and Jane Street settled on the federal land he bought a week after his 18th birthday (I assume with Badgley money). He fought in the Black Hawk War under Judge Hiram Rountree, who had married him and Jane. The couple raised seven children and lost four as infants.. Their eldest son Abraham Badgley Starr fought in the Mexican War in the company raised in Montgomery CO. In the same company were: 1) Ben Blockburger 2) Wiley B Smith, Elizabeth's son of her marriage to Joel Smith and thus the half-brother of David Badgley Starr. Wiley kept a diary of his war service. Abraham died three weeks after his discharge, by family story of a disease he'd caught in camp, which would be commensurate with history as this happened to many of the young soldiers who fought in that awful war. Ben married and went to California, where he prospered to the extent that the town of Blocksburg was named for him. After this I have no news of Wiley until 1907 when he visited Hillsboro at the same time as Ben Blockburger. Ben was living in California and I have thought that Wiley was too but not hide nor hair of him can I find out there so far. During this 1907 visit my gg-grandfather David Monroe Starr, then age 74, undertook to hand-copy Wiley's old war diary in the back of a ledger he used to record family history. His hand was still steady; he had been Montgomery County Surveyor for something like forty years and wrote a hand that is precise ane easily legible. I am so glad of the copy, as the original has disappeared as far as we know. Of Wiley I have no further information. A historical society is now interested in publishing the diary and wants to know something about Wiley, but I have little to tell them. Blockburger is another story---there is an incredible amount of information about this colorful character.... Well,. it's all a long time gone. I am as rooted in Montgomery County as a black walnut tree but until last month I had never set foot there. On May Day I visited my ancestors' graves for the first time. I had never heard spoken the names of the generations before my great-great grandfather David Monroe Starr, the one who copied Wiley's diary. Elizabeth and her many husbands, various other Badgleys, Larkin Craig's Revolutionary War veteran father, Jane Street and David, all their children, and all the other Streets I have come to know only in the last couple of years since taking up this interesting hobby. Another son of DBS and Jane was James Newton Starr, who wrote wonderful letters home from Kansas when he went out there to teach school---if you'd like to read one go to USGenWeb, Haskell CO KA. I feel affection for all of them but James is perhaps my favorite. When I die if God throws a big party so I can meet my ancestors, James is the one I'm asking for first. Do read his letter, which is full of warmth and humor---you have such a sense of the coziness and joy in their horrid little freezing-cold house where he and his wife were clearly in love with one another and with their new baby son. Describing their primitive living conditions he says, "Our bed is so low that if the cat runs under it he will knock his brains out, but as we have no cat we have no worries on that account." (James was to die of diphtheria at 31 leaving his wife with three children under four years of age and then two of those babies soon died, also of diphtheria.) I wonder sometimes how our folks stood their lives. Rob, I've kept you long enough. Again, many thanks for your help. Nora Tocus, Chicago