All content on this blog is copyright by Marci Andrews Wahlquist as of its date of publication.

Sunday, November 6, 2016

The Memoirs of John Andrews, Part 5

Here is a link to Part 4, Father's Death, Marriage to Mirinda, and New Business Ventures


Fruit Farming and Permanent Roots in Rockford

In September we left Mr. Piper—who had married again—and journeyed to Rockford in the buggy. It was a pleasant trip and delightful experience. We made 40 to 50 miles per day, stopping overnight where we could. We reached Rockford at 10 o’clock A.M. September 5th or 6th, 1861. Found all well, Ellen and our goods and our house well under way.

The house was in an almost impenetrable grove of “black jack oak” with branches from the ground up, necessitating a great deal of trimming ere we could get around with comfort or convenience. We arranged to live with James and Harriet for a time, and in a few weeks we had some rooms in a habitable condition and moved in. As it had an upper story, we left that part unfinished for the present and I put my time in painting and glazing the windows, etc. A good cellar was dug and a stone wall built for foundation before the superstructure was built. We had a cistern dug, and connected with a pump in the kitchen. We were thus comfortably fixed, and enjoyed the novelty of housekeeping in our new surroundings.

I could not then build a barn to house our horse and a cow I had bought, but made a comfortable makeshift to shelter them with poles and a straw roof. By this time winter was approaching and fuel had to be prepared. I hired a man to do some grubbing for the purpose of clearing a garden spot for the following spring planting, and also for wood for cooking and heating.

Ellen Hall, now in company with Eliza Oatman, a niece of James Hinkley, entered school in the Rockford school house and continued there for some time.

I must now return to Farmersville for a little time. The store and mill, which had been largely financed by Father, had come to me at his death in 1854, and both were continued on the original lines. As I had to buy out the interest of Mother and Seth, it was quite a setback to me for some time, and now on top of this in the summer of 1865 the mill was burned. But fortunately the machinery was not so badly damaged but that it paid a few hundred dollars salvage, of which I got two or three hundred dollars. This ended all my relations with Farmersville and my old home. But dear to me is the memory of my childhood, the scenes of my boyhood, the struggle and hopes of my early manhood.

During the winter of ’61 and ’62 I got quite a garden patch in shape for planting and in the spring put in a variety of seeds and in the end realized a good return. James had rented a farm one mile west the year before ’61, and this farm we worked together, sowing some wheat and oats, planting some corn, potatoes and beans. This was my first experience with the chinch bug. The wheat was badly damaged, the oats and corn not so bad. And also it was my first with the reaper for harvesting. It was the John P. Manny hand rake, one to drive, one to rake off, 4 or 5 to bind and shock up, on an average of 8 acres per day.

[Note: The chinch bug, or Blissus leucopterus, feeds on plants of the grass family, either wild or cultivated varieties such as wheat, rye, barley, oats, and corn. The insects suck the sap out of the growing plants. 19th-century farmers had little control over this pest.]

As this time we exchanged work with Mr. Hill who had a farm adjoining, hiring his machine and helping his force in return.

Somehow they and some others got the notion that I was a stacker and insisted that I should stack their grain. I had never done it but had learned its principle from Father years before. Finally I consented to try my hand at it but mentally resolved that I would not follow the common way of crawling around on my knees and slowly pack each sheaf in its proper place, but that I would do it standing on my feet so as to handle the bundles easier and faster, and if failing to make good I would give it up. Knowing the essential to protect the grain from damage by rains was to have a downward inclination of the stem, and that this could be had better without the close packing of the outside tier than with, I attacked the job and put my theory in practice with success. As I could by this plan put two or three times as much grain in a stack over the ordinary way, and that it kept as well or better, I had calls for more than I could do.

The next year Mr. Hill had a large acreage and importuned me to do his stacking. I would not do it unless he would pay me $4.00 per day. He demurred. The ordinary wage was $1.25. He finally agreed to pay my price. Reaching his place early in the morning, I noticed his men got to work with two teams, but as the grain was some ways from his stack yard, they could not keep me busy, and I said to him, “If you want me to earn my wages you will need another team and man.” He got a neighbor—who by the way was a noted stacker in the vicinity—and by sundown we had all his grain in, much to the surprise of Mr. Meagher, who he had called in to help. Mr. Hill took me to one side and paid the $4.00—the biggest sum by far I had ever received for a day’s work. I learned afterwards that he recouped by not paying Meagher anything. Mr. Hill up to about this time was fairly prosperous. He had a fine intelligent wife and three or four nice children. Race habits got the better of him and he went to the dogs in record time. I never had more to do with him.

[Note: Regarding “race habits”—nineteenth century scientists theorized that different races had essential characteristic habits. In general, white races were held to have “superior” habits and any negative behaviors were assigned to non-white races as “characteristic” of those races. It was all socially conditioned racial prejudice.]

I realize that there are many mistakes in dates that I have no means to disprove or rectify and that some of the incidents do not synchronize with the time or occasion, but are true, only out of place.

On June 27, 1863, Ernest J. Andrews was born, a rugged, strong baby, not so much the handsome facial features as his brothers Charles and Harry, but rather promising with growth, and dominant and self assertive, which in a measure at least his later years justified. Growing rapidly, in a few years we had three boys loyal to each other and carrying the hope that later years justified, of true, honest, and noble manhood. With their cousins the Hinkley boys they had congenial playmates, and through their school life, the trying time of boyhood life, I believe they were fully able to take care of themselves, and also were able, at least in their studies, to hold their own.

Charles was the only one of the three who graduated, and his exercise on that occasion was so unique that it attracted the attention of some Chicago reporter. Harry for some reason we never knew became dissatisfied with his teacher, Mr. Blodget, and refused to attend his school anymore, so we had him attend a private one. Their childhood and boyhood life never gave us any trouble any more than it was with just pleasure that I could sometimes help solve some puzzling problem—something I would not attempt now. I also give them credit that much of the knowledge they have garnered was not drilled into them by the pedagogue route, but largely due to voluntary choice and studious application. I must say here that the predominant factor of this mental alignment is inherited from their mother, not from me. They all worked on the farm more or less till manhood, and after, sometimes, at mechanical work in the shop, at home or abroad. I wished them to feel that they were under no obligation to follow farming as a business, but in any avocation to be true, faithful and earnest, and I believe my wish in this direction has been fully granted.

When I was about 20 years old Father had a woman who called herself “Madam Costner,” claiming to be a Phrenologist and gifted with mesmeric power, installed in the house for some time to try her “science” on my brother Seth who was afflicted with epilepsy. But like many other, and some expensive, attempts for that purpose, she was a failure. Seth’s trouble preyed so heavily on both Father and Mother that they sought every means that gave any promise of hope, even putting him in charge for months of an eminent physician in Cleveland, Ohio. Seth’s trouble passed away years later. He married twice. [Seth’s daughter] Sibbie’s mother died soon after her birth, and she was cared for by Mother and Harriet.

While the “Madam” was with us she felt of my bumps. Her first ejaculation was what a great “development of benevolence,” then you have a “telegraph head” must go head can’t rest, “you can’t live to be thirty years.” This latter was encouraging—but I have lived to know that all her revelations were false, unless I partly adopt the “telegraph head,” for often I had to curb myself, and many other occasions should have checked that tendency in my relation with the boys.

[Note: Practitioners of phrenology believed that they could determine personality by palpating bumps on the head that were believed to reflect 27 to 40 localized brain functions. They would measure an area and extrapolate on a person’s dominant traits. Some phrenologists combined their practice with mesmerism, which was supposed to allow the practitioner to change a person’s traits. It is unclear what the phreno-mesmerist claimed to do for someone suffering from epilepsy.]

Their mother once said to me on an occasional outbreak that I was a tyrant, but with all my shortcomings and needless worrying, I rejoice in the fact that each of my boys secured good social and lucrative positions. The only cloud that shadows our memory was the passing away of the elder one in his promising manhood. [Note: Charles died suddenly at the age of 40.]

After cultivating the 80-acre farm I mentioned in Rockford with James for two or three years, I bought it and two years later was able to pay for it $2500.00 The only improvement on it was a good corn crib, and a small orchard in the northwest corner of the tract, just beginning to bear and which in a few years gave us bounteous crops of snow, grimes, golden, and some other kinds of apples. The quality was fine—demand good, and the sale of them made a welcome addition to our income.

In November 1863 we found it necessary to go to Dubois, expecting to be gone at least a year, as our tenant had left on short notice. The season had been very dry over a large part of the west, and very largely curtailing the corn crop. On arriving, we found that our tenant had employed a man to take charge till relieved, and he was harvesting the corn. We got three or four loads of corn in the husk.

As we had a number of horses, colts, and a cow to winter, we were pleased to find some oats and a stack of hay, which, in addition to the gleanings of the farm, carried the stock through until grass in the spring. As soon as fall rains came so that plowing could be done, I gradually broke in several three-year-old colts and plowed some ground for early spring seeding.

On the afternoon of the last day of December I had gone to the Post Office. Just as I was starting back a sudden atmospheric change was very perceptible. Someone must have left the door of the polar region open—the blast of the northwest wind was so fierce it was hard to make headway against it, and the temperature was falling rapidly. I at once got the stock and most of the chickens under shelter. That night and the day following, 1st January 1864, was the coldest known up to that time through a section of the country five hundred miles wide from Canada to the south Atlantic states. Having a good lot of wood on hand and using it freely, we got through the cold snap quite comfortably.

I now had to find a man to help and arranged with a man by name Anderson, in order to in part cancel a debt he had been owing for several years, and because his help was needed. We had to furnish house room for himself and family, i.e., wife and two children.

This permitted Mirinda and the children to go home the next summer. I remained until late fall, boarding with this family after her departure. We got in the usual farm crops, and also several acres of beans. They all turned out well. As the Civil War was raging, I was able to send several hundred dollars home, the result of the sale of the crops to the Army.

Ben Davis apple
The orchard had grown finely and had commenced bearing so I had sent a small lot home to be put on exhibit at the County Fair, held annually in Rockford. It was a surprise in particular the Ben Davis, that variety was unknown then. They were so attractive that orders for grafts came from some of the nurserymen. I supplied, and in a few years that “beautiful” apple was common. We had planted peach trees with the apple, and made a fine exhibit of that fruit also.

[Note: The Ben Davis apple is largely forgotten again. You can read about it here on this website.]

Two years after settling in Rockford we planted some pears and grapes. When the latter got to full bearing, some of the prominent men of the city who had been attracted by our display of South Illinois fruits were astonished. Our vines were loaded with the finest fruit ever grown there. We had many visitors and questions as though we had by some secret process produced such crops of grapes. They had grown the Clinton, a grape a little in advance of the common wild grape. When the people saw our success and that it was as easy to produce the best as the ordinary, grape growing had a boom. When I say “we,” in connection I mean James Hinkley and myself. Our interest here was similar, our partnership was the orchard south.

Soon after returning from Dubois in November ’64 the man left in charge of the orchard was drafted in the army. Corresponding with a man we knew in Dubois, I arranged for a party to see to things until the spring following. Then James and Harriet with their children went and remained there until the spring of 1867.

Early in ’66 Mother went on a few months’ visit to her old Indiana home, stopping on her return at Dubois with Harriet, and in November following came to us. But she was soon taken with pneumonia and died the first of December.

James had an older brother in California, a “49er,” and on his own initiative James sent funds for traveling expenses with the request that he come and take charge of the place. He accepted the proposal and at once came on. This seemed a “promising” way to secure a permanent tenant, but “all that glitters is not gold.” He was a bachelor and had charge for several years, but then he bought some land in the vicinity and remained for many years. [Note: This older brother was Adino Hinkley.]

I will now leave this theme for the present and notice more home and personal matters, and give time for our beloved boys to grow some, and fast they did. They had their childhood plays, and had for company their cousins, Anson, Arthur and later Otis and Ralph Hinkley, and this pleasant condition continued, through their school days and while Childhood lapsed into boyhood and even unto manhood there was no lengthy break in their intercourse.

As our boys grew up they were all helpful and willing, although differing in their preferences as to their studies and pursuits were very congenial at all times in their daily intercourse. Charles was cheerful, social, enjoyed music, especially singing. Harry quiet and thoughtful. Ernest ever active, urging for some new thing to do. These inclinations seemed prophetic, and were in part at least realized as they reached manhood and selected or achieved occupations.

When Charles was about eighteen he and Harry were interested in the canning business, inaugurated by Mr. Skinner, and worked at times at that at Rockford and at Chicago for a short time. We were glad when they quit that and returned to the farm.

About this time, when Harry was 17, we became very uneasy as his health seemed failing, his eyes troubling also. A little later he went to California for a change, but remained but a short time, and the next winter he spent in Florida, with the Upsons, and he, as well as ourselves, was grateful for the good results. Of his own volition he was learning shorthand, and kept it up when release from farm work gave him opportunity. Becoming proficient [he] was employed by a lawyer, studied law, and finally received his license with the results we all know.

Ernest remained on the farm and from the time he was 17 until 21 was my right hand man. His mechanical inclination or taste was such that I sought, and usually accepted, his suggestions, and in buying improved machinery for the farm accepted his decision. In ’78 and ’80 we built a basement barn that would hold a large amount of hay, and begun adding to our stock of cows, increasing our milk supply. We had been selling milk in a small way for some time to a milk peddler. This called for a way to house and fasten them. Ernest was equal to the call and soon had stanchions etc. for forty of them He remained with us until 1884. He had become restless and wished to branch out for himself, which was his perfect right. As I had of late years depended so much on him I felt his departure to his chosen field, but hoped for his success, and I was not disappointed.

The work continued with hired help. After a year or two Charles married—returned to the farm—took charge of the milking and started a milk route, and took an interest in the farm. A house was now needed, and in ’85 we built the house. We now had Charles move into it and keep the hired help, and also work the land for a year or two.

Ernest went away the 11th of August 1884, when 21 years of age, and some three years later having accomplished his purpose returned to Rockford with a wife and baby. This added another daughter to our family. As he was equipped for business, he soon got employment with a prominent lawyer and in this connection followed the same course as that of Harry, ending with his license as a lawyer. He and Harry made some arrangement that I never fully understood by which Charles became interested and which was so much more congenial to him he abandoned the farm etc. I was sorry to lose the assistance of the boys, but I was pleased that they had all succeeded on their own volition and individual efforts in reaching the desired positions. I had told Charles that I would take the charge of the farm off his hands any time he wished, and as that time had now come the transfer was made. We were living at the old home, and he was in the new farm house. We soon made the exchange. I carried on the business of farm and milking with hired help until I was 64 [1895], when in an evil hour I rented the farm, sold off most of the stock and I have never milked a cow since.

Here are views of the Andrews homes in Rockford:


I still have many pleasant memories of those active days of the long ago, and will have so long as memory lasts.

When Adino [Hinkley] took charge in 1866 the orchard had grown finely. For two or three years we had some peaches for market and in ’67 a light crop of apples. In ’68 the trees both early and late were heavily loaded. On the 4th of July I went down to help about the early harvest apples, and found a great part of them were picked and not more than half grown. These were an entire loss. I stopped the picking at once, and three weeks later we gathered the residue for which we found a profitable market in Chicago.

The winter apple crop was very good and was gathered and sold in good order for fair prices.

All our affairs continued, both at home and south, with but little change in our activities, and the results thereof until 1872. This was the 14th anniversary of our orchard experiment, and a gratifying crop of peaches and apples, both early and late, made it incumbant on me to be on hand in early summer. Charles was now 12 years old, soon followed me and became very active in his cheerful and boyish way. In August both he and the best hired man, in most respects, were stricken with fever. He [the hired man] undertook to doctor himself, with the result it caused his death, at his home in Wisconsin, where he was induced to go. Charlie’s mother on learning his condition at once came down bringing Harry and Ernest. A doctor was consulted and following his directions and her loving nursing in a few weeks had him fully restored. They all remained for some time and enjoyed delicious peaches, fresh plucked from the trees, without stint or pay. They were so abundant that the pigs almost fattened on them. They returned home in the fall, while I remained to secure the fine apple crop, several car loads of which went to Rockford and met with ready sale, the balance sold on commission south and in Chicago.

I had known Allen Cope in Mount Vernon, Indiana, some years previous to our leaving Indiana. He left there before we did, and I had lost all track of him until 1870. He learned somehow that I was at Dubois and he came to see me. We had a very pleasant reunion and what was more I learned that he was in the same business. He had a large orchard thirty miles north of us planted a few years later than ours, but was in full bearing, had a fine crop in ’72.

In April ’72 a magnificent bloom gave promise of another profitable crop. But alas we had not learned then to protect the tender bloom by smudges, from frost that sometimes cut off the fruits, and one night did the job. That year there was no apples or peaches in that section. What to do was now the question. We wanted apples, and our customers would expect us to supply them. In August following I went to Michigan and northern Indiana to spy out the land, and found that there was a good prospect of a fair supply. In September went back prepared to buy—knowing that Mr. Cope was in the same condition as to fruit as I informed him what I had done, and discovered, and soon he arrived. I had bought the apples in a number of orchards and was busy packing them when he came. In less than two months we have over two thousand barrels packed and shipped.

As Mr. Cope had a large frost proof apple house, and as I found he was a far better salesman we sent the larger part to his place and a few car loads to Rockford. As much of this fruit was for late winter and spring market, it was necessary to repack to eliminate all defective specimens. I went down to Mr. Cope’s place and spent some weeks there, while he did the marketing. A good profit was made on this venture and on what part sent home and managed by James.

Anson Hinkley was born at Farmersville November 1857. He grew up to manhood at Rockford. Sometime in the ’80s, I sold my interest at Dubois to James, and in time Anson moved there and has continued, first as his father’s assistant, and after his death as owner, and with his boys continues it with success and financial profit.

As the boys grew up we needed more land. For some time I wanted part of the Church farm which joined my first purchase on the east. Mr. Church was anxious to sell the west forty, and after dickering for a few years he reduced his first price and then I bought it, paying him in cash $2600, about 65 dollars per acre, a large reduction of his first proposal of $125 per acre. This gave us a farm of 120 acres. James had rented the Jobs farms and I subrented part of that for three years.

Sometime during the process—I do not remember the year—Mr. Agard, who was a grain dealer in the city, came to me and said that he had a mortgage or rather a trust deed of the Jackson tract and asked if I would not buy it—saying it had to be sold to cancel the obligation—about $5000, making a very reasonable offer as to payment, etc., that I at once told him that I would take it. So very soon that became one of our possessions and still is.

A few years after going to Rockford we bought a 50-acre tract on what is now Auburn Street, North Kent’s Creek running through, paying $2,000 for it, and very soon selling 24 acres of it for 90 dollars per acre to C.O. Upton, on which he built his slaughter house.

In order to get the land we needed a street, as private property in the City limits intervened. We made application to the City Council, and they after investigating granted the petition, and thus Furman Street became one of the City’s thoroughfares.

After using this tract in company with James for a number of years, I sold out my interest to him, as I had then bought the place we now live on.

The Jackson purchase included also 27 acres north of Auburn Street in the slough, Kent’s Creek meandering through it, as there was no way to reach it except by consent of Mr. Colton through his land, I tried to sell it at a low price—failing in that, we cut several crops of heavy grass, hauling the hay out through Colton’s private way and stacking it on our land.

The winter following ’81 was attended with heavy snow fall, making the roads almost impassable for the delivery of hay from a distance, giving haysellers nearby a monopoly, and ours went off at unprecedented prices.

The Brantingham estate had two 80-acre tracts west of the Jackson, and something near 46 acres from Auburn to Kent’s Creek. Dr. Lane and Joe Brantingham were executors. After several weeks dickering and in the end getting quite a reduction in the price demanded, I bought it for ten thousand and ten dollars, paying one thousand down, the balance at my option as to time, with eight per cent interest. Altogether I was now indebted to the extent of $18,000, and an annual interest obligation of $1200.

Here the fates came to my rescue apparently. B.A. Knight and James Ticknor started a boom. Knight wanted sixty acres in the southwest part of our holdings. I delegated to Harry the deal, as I thought it was the right of the boys to say yes or no. Harry put a price of $200 per acre—and $12,000 cancelled my obligations. It is one of my regrets that I did not make the farm pay instead of taking that big bite of it to do the paying.

Knight got busy; a street car line was cheaply built. Lots were selling fast at $250 or more each. Factories were built. I was invited to help financially, and as the movement had so far been to our advantage, I could not well refuse. But invariably I demanded that my investment must be made by the sale of lots at least the rate of $250 each. In this way some $2000 went. The car line, after passing through many tribulations, finally reached success in the present service of that organization, and no doubt it has been worth to us much more than what we put in it.

Now comes the Diamond Factory, and of this I do not write, or keep in my memory.

[Note: This is where he ended writing his memoirs. There was a Diamond Furniture Company that started in Rockford in 1891. Perhaps he put money in and lost it, but we will never know for sure.]






1919 Andrews Family
Back: Mae (Harry's daughter), Mamie and Harry Andrews, Rex and Beulah Andrews (Charles' son), Elizabeth P Andrews French (Charles' daughter).
Center: Mamie's sister Fannie Ginders, Mirinda and John Andrews, Vinnie and Ernest Andrews, Cordelia Andrews (Charles' widow).
Front: Charles Andrews (Harry's son), Chellis French Jr. (Charles' grandson), Glenn Andrews (Ernest's son)

Mirinda and John Andrews, 1920
About the time he was writing his memoirs
John Andrews died December 28, 1922 at the age of 91. Mirinda Andrews died April 14, 1928, age 87.

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