I am new to the Stowell list and related to the Stowell's through my grandmother, Anna Maria Stowell Bassett (1869-1959). Her father, Calvin Stowell (1836-1917), wrote the following memoir of his father Ebenezer Stowell (1836-1917) and the early settlement of central Illinois. I would like to contact with the relatives of my grandmother's sisters, Mary Agnes Pinkney, Laura Brookmyer, Nellie Sisson, and Edith Kreutz. Edward E. Swenson Pianos and Fortepianos http://www.mozartpiano.com/ 11 Congress St. P.O. Box 634 Trumansburg, NY 14886-0634 USA Voice: 607-387-6650 Fax: 607-387-3905 Cell: 607-280-7945 THE STOWELL FAMILY OF LAWN RIDGE By Calvin Stowell, 1910 We have been repeatedly asked to furnish a sketch of our father¹s life in connection with his pioneer days in the early settlement of Illinois. We feel it to be a delicate matter to write of the life of one, or portion of the life of one, as close by the ties of nature, as father and son; but we realize that those of my father¹s generation immediately following, have passed over the ³Dark River,² and so far as I can remember, there is no one now living that could testify in regard to the facts connected with our final move to Illinois in 1843, aside from the writer. Of the incidents connected with his first trip to Illinois on his exploring expedition in 1836, we can only give them from memory as we have heard talked over again and again at the fireside in our childhood days, and often repeated in our maturer years. So under existing conditions, we should feel ourselves unworthy of the father that begot us, and the mother that bore us, if we should refuse to give any facts in regard to those pioneer years of hardship and heroic endeavor and endurance that would add anything to the history of the early settlers of Illinois, whose lives are now numbered upon the records of the heroic deeds of the past. In the spring of 1836, when my father, Ebenezer Stowell, was twenty-nine years of age, he with his first cousin, Roswell Nurse, and his son, Isaiah Nurse, a young man just at his majority, packed their grips with such things only as were absolutely necessary for health and comfort on the road, and, with one rifle as their only weapon, which they carried turn about, started from Bambridge, Chenango County, New York, for the much talked of ³Land of Promise,² the young state of Illinois. Their plan was to make the trip on foot and to make any side explorations in going as might be deemed best. Just the route which they took, we are not able to give, further than this, that they explored quite thoroughly much of the country along the Wabash River in Indiana, and then struck across the Peoria, Illinois, which was then little more than a village. From there, they went up the River to Chillicothe, a town of a few houses along the river bank. Here they met Jacob Booth, whom they had known in York State, who had preceded them by a length of time unknown to us. We have also heard them speak of meeting J.H. McKean, now a resident of Wyoming, Illinois, well past his four-score and ten years. But they had little time for visiting; time was precious and they were there on business. Leaving Chillicothe, they went to Northampton, where Reuben Hamlin had a tavern. Here they established headquarters while exploring the country. They finally located timber-land upon what has since been called Blue Ridge, and prairie along the south line of Marshall County, where Lawn Ridge now stands. They then took up their line of march for the nearest land office, Quincy, Illinois, one hundred and sixty miles distant. Having made their entries, and secured their patents, they returned to Hamlin¹s, which they made their stopping place while they built a small but comfortable log house on the exact spot where Isaiah Nurse subsequently built a good substantial home, now owned by H.H. Nurse, and occupied by his son. Game was plentiful in those days and in their walks back and forth to Hamlin¹s, they often picked up a turkey with their trusty rifle that added materially to their bill of fare. It was now getting well along in the fall. The object of their summer¹s tramp accomplished, it was arranged that Isaiah Nurse should remain and keep house while Roswell Nurse and my father should return to the East for their families. So again the two men started on their tramp for Chicago, with a view of expediting their trip home, by taking a schooner to Buffalo, New York. It was now getting late in the fall, and they were beset with high and adverse winds and bad storms, often compelled to lie under the lee of some island for days before they could proceed. Three weeks were consumed in the trip from Chicago to Buffalo, New York. Here again they took up their line of march for their homes in Chenango County, about the center of the state on the south line, ---their long tramp finished, and the work they set out to do fully accomplished. It was upon his return from Illinois that I first met my father, my arrival having anticipated his by a few weeks. While we have no very distinct recollection of the occasion, we think it fairly to be presumed that we met him with the grace and dignity becoming one of our age and experience. And here closes the first chapter of the record. The spring following their return to New York State, Roswell Nurse moved with his family to their possessions in Illinois. My father being a mechanic with plenty of work in the East, and no assurance of any in his line in the West, deferred moving his family until 1843, when, with a good team of mares attached to a wagon with the box set upon springs, our family, then five in number, started on the long road to our future home, which we reached in three and one-half weeks. A young man by the name of John Champlin went through with us, driving a horse and buggy of Dr. Ashed Wilmot¹s, who moved to Illinois the same spring. Doctor¹s old Charley horse and sulky were known on the road for many years as the Doctor made his professional visits. Our journey was made without incident or accident worthy of note, but the broad prairies, as hour after hour we drove over them without seeing a sign of human habitation, were in strong contrast with the same country two and three decades later. Our heavy goods father had drawn to Olean Point in the late winter before, when they were rafted down to the Ohio River in charge of Uncle Lyman Robinson, who came around by water the same spring, arriving at our destination some weeks ahead of us. The next day after our arrival, the goods were stored, the family found shelter amongst the neighbors, and father was in quest of a saw mill which he found on the Senachwine Creek, about two miles above Northampton. Being a mill-wright, he soon had it in order, and was sawing lumber for a house, while Champlin with the team and wagon was drawing it to the place designated for a building. In just two weeks from the time of reaching our journey¹s end, we were under our own roof, and gathered as a family in our own habitation. Crude and unfinished though it was, it was home, and life in our new environment was begun, in what was then called the ³Little Blue Ridge Settlement.² Of this little pioneer settlement much that would be of interest could be said, but that would take us beyond the scope of this paper. That those first years in Illinois were both primitive in matters of dress and very plain in matters of living, goes without saying, and had it not been for kind-hearted, industrious Grandma Will who preceded us to Illinois by a few years, and announced that she had planted garden for all of the newcomers, we might have truly said that our living was both plain in quality and scrimped in quantity; for what little cash came in the treasury in those early years, father depended upon his trade. Being a Yankee, he considered a barn indispensable, and the second year put up a good framed barn, enclosed with hardwood lumber of his own sawing. The example seemed contagious, and numerous other jobs of the same kind were soon given him. In addition to this, he got several jobs in building over and repairing both flouring mills and saw mills, one near Princeton, one on Crow Creek where he took the ague which stayed by him for many months, and was altogether more than he bargained for. He also did work on the old Evans flouring mill, which many of the old settlers will remember, located upon the Kickapoo Creek in Peoria County. Clothing was among the important items to be provided for, and a flock of sheep was among the first things to be looked after, the care and preservation of which in those early days of dogs and wolves was no small item. The wool from their backs was spun into yarn and woven into cloth by my mother¹s deft hands, and by her cut and made into garments for the whole family. From her loom also came many a bolt of cloth for the neighbors, with all of whom, comfort counted for everything, and mere style for less than nothing. The loose woolen shirt, the jeans pants, vest and wampus was the style for the men and boys; and, for the women, the plain calico dress in summer, and the woolen dress for winter, were the order of the day. The year 1840 is approximately that of the building of the little brick school-house from which we and many others graduated. It was also the church from which the circuit rider held forth once in four weeks. Feeling the need of more religious services in the community, Dr. A. Wilmot, Nathaniel Smith and father, with their wives, organized a Congregational Church‹not as a rival, but as a helper‹in maintaining religious services with all that can be implied in it. Owen Lovejoy of Princeton, who afterwards became famous in the nation¹s councils, was at the head of the Council of Organization. This church worked harmoniously with the Methodist people and for the general good of all, until in the process of settlement a few years later, service was moved to Lawn Ridge, where the church still stands, and has the honor of being the parent from which the Congregational Churches of Stark, Edelstein and Speer have sprung. It was not our design in writing this paper to give a biography of our father¹s life, only a few incidents in connection with his pioneer days, which with his optimistic views of life, were most thoroughly identified with those of his neighbors in upholding all that morally, socially and financially was for the best interest of all concerned; and we realize that we are drawing out this paper to great length, still do not see just where to stop. There is one thing more due primarily to my father¹s fore-sight which has become an universal blessing. It was early noted in the old settlement that there was but one spring of absolutely living water in the settlement. Knowing that the land was for sale and that it was liable to be closed to the public, father approached the owner with the proposition to segregate that spring from the balance of the tract, and sell it for the benefit of the public. Having got consent of the owner to do so, Uncle Erastus and Lucas Root joined hands with him in putting up the cash. The land connecting the spring with the public highway was bought and deeded to the public forever, and it became a veritable ³Jacob¹s Well.² There have been times of drouth when it seems that both man and beast would have perished without it. Amongst the sad events of the early day was the death by lightning of my Uncle Nathan Stowell, who with my father and brother was making hay on the prairie, about three miles from home. The three were standing together not a yard from each other when a bolt of lightning struck Nathan dead. My brother Orson was also struck and blistered from head to foot, a spot on his arm burned to the bone, and a wound inflicted on his head from which blood flowed freely; while, strange to say, father did not lose consciousness for a moment, was not even knocked down. This uncle with a younger brother who died from the effects of an accident the following winter were the first two burials in Blue Ridge Cemetery. My father died in the year 1880 in his 73rd year; my mother in 1889 in her 81st year. We feel that we cannot close this sketch without a word in a general way for the old neighbors of pioneer days with whom we were closely associated for many years. Fraternity and reciprocity were characteristic of them as a whole; not that they always saw ³eye to eye,² for they were all human; but in no case did their petty differences withhold the helping hand in the day of affliction, and be it said to their credit that such a thing as a law suit was never known within our recollection of more than sixty-five years. In looking back over the record of those in and around the old settlement as early as 1846, we can count the graves of at least twelve fathers and mothers who rest side by side in the little settlement cemetery. Within a half mile of our old home, we wooed and wed the faithful wife who has walked by our side for forty-six years. Here our first child was born. Here, when the curtain falls, we expect to be our final resting place amongst the old neighbors, kindred and friends we knew so long and well. Sincerely, Calvin Stowell 402 E. Henry Street Savannah, Ga.