Report on a Very Distant Cousin

Cousin Clark figures in the first part of my ancestor John Andrews’ memoirs, four years older than John, who was adopted into the family when John was around five years old. From John’s descriptions of him, he seemed to be an agreeable companion, nice to his cousin, obedient to his aunt and uncle and very intelligent. I couldn’t find him on our family tree—but because John’s mother was a Butler and Clark was her nephew, he had to be Clark Butler. We don’t have much detail about her siblings, and I wondered where he fit in, so I jumped on Ancestry.com and looked up all the records I could find about him and his family.

Clark Allyn Butler was born in Posey County, Indiana, either the latter part of 1826 or the early part of 1827 (John says Clark is four years older, and the various censuses that record his age support a birth in the latter months of 1826 through early 1827). His parents were Marcus Butler, younger brother of Elizabeth (John’s mother), and Anna Allyn. Marcus Butler had been born in May 1794 in Heath, Franklin County, Massachusetts, one of the younger children of a very large family. Anna was the daughter of a couple who had moved to Indiana Territory, where Anna had been born about 1797. Anna and Marcus met in Posey County, Indiana, and married there on 20 December 1820. Their only child seems to have been Clark. Maybe there were miscarriages or other children who died young, but we don’t know. According to one researcher, Marcus wrote a will that was probated starting in February 1827, so he had died some time not too long before that. We don’t know if he lived to see Clark’s birth or not. Anna died about three years later, according to unconfirmed records, leaving little Clark an orphan.

John Andrews wrote about his cousin: “In my sixth year Father became guardian to a cousin, Clark Butler, 4 years my senior, and after a few years we pursued the same studies together.” This would have been about 1836; if Clark’s mother passed away some years previously, Clark must have been living with other relatives. Anna Allyn Butler may have lived longer than reported; perhaps Clark was orphaned at age 8 or 9 instead of age 3. They were in the same neighborhood, and as Clark’s aunt was Elizabeth Butler Andrews, and her husband, Anson Seeley Andrews, was known to be a generous man, it seems natural that Clark would have found a home with these close relatives. [Quotes and all specific descriptions come from Memoirs of John Andrews pp 3–6.]

Clark went to school with John at the neighborhood school in Farmersville. He seems to have been a good scholar; at least he got into no trouble that John recounted. The school burned down one night after a troubled meeting that had been called on account of a severe thrashing a boy had received at the hands of the schoolteacher. The teacher was fined, the school burned, and school after that was held in an empty house on the Andrews farm, and then in the church across the lane from the farm for a time. Mr Andrews, disapproving of the teacher’s methods, withdrew his nephew and son and sent them to the seminary in Mt Vernon, 3½ miles to the south, where they learned not only English grammar and rhetoric, but algebra, geometry, and Latin.

The boys started for school before 7 a.m. in good weather, and earlier on the days when it was their turn to sweep and make fires, which all the male students took turns doing. On those days Clark and John took turns going the extra half mile to get the key. In December they would find the stars shining still when they left for school, and if either of them had to stay late to finish schoolwork, the other would wait and they would get home after dark. Back at home they often found that Mother Andrews had hot, fresh cornbread waiting for them for a treat.

They learned farming in the summers from Mr Andrews and went to school in the winters, sometimes only for a three-month term if that was all that was available. They each stayed in school until they were past 20 years old, no doubt gaining an extensive and valuable education.

When Clark was 20, gold was discovered in California, and soon the Gold Rush was on, with a number of young men in the immediate vicinity determined to go and seek their fortunes. Clark decided to go too. In 1850 the census taker found him living in Placerville, California, one of the larger mining towns in El Dorado County, working as a miner. He had about $350 worth of real estate, the census reported, so he had apparently been successful enough in finding gold to buy property.

When Clark got home to Posey County, he worked for his relatives again, even though he had made good money in California. After Mr Andrews died in 1854, the farm was divided among John and his two younger siblings, Seth and Harriet. Their mother and Seth decided they wanted to sell and move to Wisconsin, so John and Harriet also sold their portions. Part of the farm was bought by one of Mr Andrews’ nephews, Anson Seeley Osborne, and Clark lived with him and his family and worked as a farm hand until he married.

Clark met Elzina (or Alzina) Black there in Posey County. Alzina was ten years younger than Clark, born in Posey County and probably not noticed by him until he came back from California. They were married 21 February 1861 in Mount Vernon, Posey County, Indiana. Clark soon bought a farm and they settled down to rearing a family in Black Township.

They had the following children, all born in Black Township, Posey County, Indiana:

• Jessie Belle Butler, born in August 1862; died 20 October 1907, age 45.
• Minnie Grace Butler, born in 1864 and died in 1865.
• Marcus Butler, born 31 August 1866; married Nettie Utley 24 June 1912; died 7 November 1945.
• John Black Butler, born in 1868; died in 1889.
• Margaret W (Maggie), born 21 February 1871; appeared on the 1880 census and died probably before 1890.
• Samuel Arthur Butler, born 3 October 1875; married Ida Bell French 15 January 1910; died 18 March 1932, age 56.

When the census taker came around in 1870, Clark and Elzina were living on their own farm in Posey County. Clark was 43 and Alzina 33. The farm and property’s worth was over $4500, so they were prospering. They had a daughter and two sons living then: Jessie Belle, Marcus, and John Black.

Ten years later the family had grown, but sadly for them all, in 1879 Alzina had died at the age of only 42. Jessie Belle, at age 17, was probably taking care of the younger children and keeping house for them all.

Clark continued to prosper in his farming; his daughter Jessie Belle kept house for him until he died, and his sons helped on the farm until Mark took it over. Sadly, John Black Butler died in 1889 at the age of 20 or 21.

Clark A Butler died on 8 January 1893 at home. His death is recorded in Book H-2 on page 35 of the record compiled by the Indiana Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. He was about 66 years old.

Jessie never married; she kept house for her brothers Mark and Arthur after their father died. The 1900 Census shows the three of them living together in the farmhouse in Black Township in Posey County where they had all been born. The brothers are farmers.

After Jessie Belle died in 1907, Arthur got married in January 1910 to Ida Belle French. The 1910 Census shows that Arthur and Ida Belle were living with Mark in the family farmhouse in Black Township. By 1920 Arthur and Ida Belle had their own home, with their two children, Eileen and Naurice, and Ida’s parents living with them. Their third child, a daughter, died young, and they had another daughter a few years later. Sadly, Arthur developed early-onset dementia, probably Alzheimer’s Disease, and died at age 56. He had done well enough that he and Ida Belle owned their own home free and clear when he died, and she was well provided for.

Marcus, who went by Mark, married Nettie Utley when he was 46 years old, on 24 June 1912. They had no children. He had developed his farm into a dairy farm and was very successful. Mark died when he was 79, of severe lung congestion, on 7th November 1945. Nettie died three years after Mark.

The family continues through the descendants of Samuel Arthur Butler.

The Hatter of Broadway

As a break from an ongoing project, I’m going to write about a man with a hat shop. To introduce him, I have to go back to a previous post about my ancestor John Andrews, in which he described a trip he and his sister Harriet took from their home in southern Indiana to New York and Connecticut to see relatives and the New York World’s Fair of 1853 [you can access that post here].

He says they came “to New York, and Brooklyn, where we met for the first time some of our cousins, Mrs. Mary Taylor and her sister Miss Harriet Osborn. They were sisters of A.S. Osborn who had come west some years before” –and then they had gone with Harriet Osborne to Connecticut where all their older relatives still lived. The Osborne sisters were the daughters of Julia Andrews, one of John’s father’s younger sisters.

Here’s where he introduces our hat man:
“Returning to New York and Brooklyn we were helped in sight-seeing by some of our business relatives, Mr. Taylor, Mary Osborne’s husband who had a hat store on Broadway, another cousin Andrews who dealt in clothing etc. also on Broadway, and Samuel Andrews who, although a graduate of Yale College, and the only one of my kindred that I heard of who did, drove a dray to support his family, and perhaps he was more successful than his brothers.” [In my previous post I added a note about the humble occupation of driving a dray, but I now wonder if John meant to stress that Samuel was the only one of his family who graduated from college?]

To get back to hat making and such subjects—I decided I needed to know the name of this hatter. I had looked for him in the past with no success, but people are doing more altruistic work than ever these days, despite what we read in the newspapers, and all around the world there are folks photographing, scanning, uploading, and online indexing historical records for the fun of it—not for any pecuniary advantage—which is why I found him this time I looked.

I got on Ancestry.com and asked the search engine to look for a man surnamed Taylor with a wife named Mary, living in the vicinity of New York City in 1850, who did something with hats for a living. Bingo! The New York State census of 1855 popped up with the family of Anson Taylor, a man who made and sold hats for a living, born in Connecticut with a wife named Mary who was also born in Connecticut, with a few little children and a sister named Harriet Osborn who was also born in Connecticut. They lived in Brooklyn. This was obviously our man.

Top hat and Panama hat styles

Did you know that the bowler hat was invented in 1849 by James Lock & Co. of London? Perhaps Anson Taylor was creating the new design for sale in his shop. Certainly he was making top hats of all kinds. Panama hats were probably originally created in Ecuador and became popular worldwide by being sold to the thousands of 1849 gold seekers passing through the Isthmus of Panama. Anson Taylor would have had Panama hats in his shop as well.

Butch Cassidy and his wild bunch all wearing bowler hats

Men’s smoking hats of that day were modeled on the Turkish fez, and were intended to keep the smoker’s head warm and incidentally to absorb most of the smell of the smoke so that the hair didn’t smell. Smoking hats were made of luxury fabric such as velvet and were richly embroidered and adorned with tassels.

Various examples of 19th-century smoking hats, courtesy of Google

Top hat of the style worn in the early 1850s;
this daguerreotype was made on Broadway and
maybe this young man bought his hat from Anson Taylor

An interesting thing about making hats of felt—the Mad Hatter’s disease was a dreadful reality. Especially in the mid-19th century, immigrants and other workers made hats in close quarters with little ventilation and inadequate drainage, so that they were ripe for mercury poisoning during the felt-making process that released mercury vapor into the air. One of the major symptoms of the disease was tremors in the hands, eyelids, lips, and tongue, which were all dismissed as signs that the worker was addicted to intoxicating liquor.

Felt hat making processes

Could Mr. Anson Taylor have operated one of these unhygienic workshops in the back of his store or somewhere nearby? At the time it would have been seen as normal working conditions and practices to have such a setup.

It is very probable that Anson Taylor was not physically making the hats himself. He left his Broadway shop at night and went home to Brooklyn, where Mary and the children, his sister-in-law Harriet, and usually an Irish boarder or servant or both were living. (There was one Ellen McGonnagal from Dublin there in the household as a servant when the 1855 census was taken, and she was back again when the 1870 census was taken. Why she wasn’t there for the 1860 census is a little mystery.) At any rate, this was a well-to-do household, with all of the houses on the street worth from $4500 to $5000, located in the old Brooklyn Heights neighborhood running along the East River south of where the Brooklyn Bridge would be built beginning in 1869.

In 1853 when John and Harriet Andrews visited the Osbornes, over in New York Boss William M. Tweed was just coming into full power and starting his system of graft in the Tammany Hall district. As tourists, the Andrews siblings wouldn’t have come into contact with any of the corruption of the city government, of course.

They would have appreciated the sights of the Trinity Church, the tallest structure in Manhattan at that time; the Church of the Holy Trinity with the first stained-glass windows to depict figures; perhaps 1 Hanover Square, which was the newly-opened site of the Hanover Bank (later to be the site of the New York Cotton Exchange and then the India House); and the big old round fort building at the Battery that was once known as Fort Clinton, but then was known as Castle Garden, a place of entertainment. The renowned soprano Jenny Lind had sung there a year or two before, and the notorious Lola Montez presented the infamous “tarantula dance” there the next year. They might also have visited Green-wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, as it was a popular tourist place. Before Boss Tweed was buried there in the 1870s, no one who had been convicted of a crime, or even had been in jail, was allowed to be buried there. The cemetery’s popularity in the 1850s led directly to the competition to design and develop New York’s Central Park. Perhaps on a Sunday they attended Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn and heard the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, whom many considered to be the most famous speaker in America, preach a sermon against slavery. Scattered about the still-mostly agrarian area were homes, schools, and other buildings made famous by the American Revolution or by surviving from the earliest colonial days.

In addition, as John wrote, “While in New York a world’s fair was in progress. . . . in one building there was a great many things on exhibition that were new to me, interesting and useful. Typewriter a novelty and a wonder to most every one, sewing machines, and other household appliances, agricultural machinery in variety, such as plows, cultivators, mowing machines, reapers, etc.” The Fair buildings were built in what is now Bryant Park.

Lower Manhattan Island in the 1850s. Note the spire of Trinity Church. Brooklyn Heights is on the lower right.
On the lower left of the island is the round Castle Garden building.

It’s probably useful to think about what was not in New York yet in 1853. No skyscrapers. No Brooklyn Bridge, which was the first bridge over either one of New York’s rivers, as it was not yet planned. Central Park’s creation was just then being funded by the legislature, although winter ice skating was popular already on the lake there. Macy’s first store in New York City was still five years away from being started. The Metropolitan Museum of Art wouldn’t be started on Fifth Avenue until 1870. St. Patrick’s Cathedral was not built until 1910.

But our hat maker Anson Taylor and his family would have seen some of these changes as they continued to live there. One line in David McCullough’s famous book about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge says that a Brooklyn hatter was among those who walked across the temporary wooden footbridge during the construction of the mammoth bridge. The hatter was one of those who unfortunately froze with fright midway across and had to be helped back (page 407). I hope that wasn’t Anson! The stereoscopic view below, taken in the late 1870s during construction, shows how scary that footbridge was.

The construction footbridge was used by quite a few intrepid people until a man had a seizure in the middle and nearly fell. After that, the construction foreman stopped issuing anybody a pass to go up. Besides, people were getting in the way of the building of the bridge.

Funny thing is, Anson disappears from the records of New York between 1860 and 1870. His wife and some of the children still live in the same house in Brooklyn in 1870, and then they too all disappear.

An Anson Taylor surfaces in Illinois in 1870, married to a much-younger Irish immigrant named Marianne Barrett originally from Dublin. They have two children, a 15-year-old boy named John (who might have belonged to Marianne from a previous relationship), and a little girl named Monica. I wondered if our Anson had been caught in an affair and divorced from Mary Osborne Taylor. It happened to many folks—but there is no telling here for certain.

I did discover that a lot of people online seem to be looking for an Anson Taylor born within the same 10-year period as our Anson, and all seeming to disappear from families where curiously, only one or two children were ever born, and always in the month of March. Maybe our Anson was a serial bigamist who took annual trips?! Little Monica was born in March . . .

Maybe he came down with Mad Hatter’s disease and could take it no longer and left.

Serious researchers, you’ll have to pardon my taking liberties with the gravity of the facts you seek. I actually seek facts too and try to identify my flights of fancy as such. Note to everyone: the preceding three paragraphs contain speculation about facts. Do not treat my “wonder” as truth! My apologies to all you who are literate enough to understand the difference, but these days explanation is safer than subtlety.

These days “facts” have become whatever suits the imagination. We are living in an age where fantasy is sliding into propaganda. By the way, I have a bridge to sell you, though I may be “talking through my hat.”

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.

The Memoirs of John Andrews, Part 4

Here is Part 3 of the Memoirs: Farm Inventions, Politics, and Business.

Father’s Death, Marriage to Mirinda, and New Business Ventures

When the schoolhouse at “Yankeytown” was burned, it contained a small library which of course suffered the same fate. In building the new house, a room was arranged for installing a library in the future, and after a few years it was commenced first by voluntary donations of books and money, and enough was realized in the latter way to purchase more. This was about 1852.

Additions were made in like manner until probably 1856 to 1858, when a wealthy philanthropist of New Harmony anticipated Carnegie in his library gifts by a number of years by giving libraries, if certain conditions of his will were complied with, the sum of five hundred dollars—and as ours fully met the requirements of the will, we got what was called the equivalent in books, but we had no choice in selecting them. We felt that there was collusion between the executor of the will and the bookseller, but rather than make a row, we receipted for what we had.

In 1854 at a meeting of those most interested, a plan was discussed for the loaning of the books, and also for someone to see to it. As no one would wish to spend much time as librarian in this small affair it resulted in choosing Saturday afternoon for distribution and a turn-about for the job of the librarian.

Father and Mother were then on a visit to two sisters of Mother’s—Dorcas Palmer in Ohio and Aunt Mary Smith in Michigan. She was the mother of George A. Smith. Father was so impressed with George’s financial ability that he offered to loan him quite a sum to aid him in a mercantile business. They were gone on this visit three months.

We had a tenant on the farm for several years, and with his help, and when occasion required other help was employed, I kept the farm work going and at the same time paid some attention to the store, which was prospering now with a competent clerk. I think that Father was pleased with results in the farm and was satisfied that I could operate the store to advantage. In a manner he suggested that I take personal control of that also. This was very gratifying to me, and what experience I had in that direction had shown me that I was a better salesman than any clerk we had before.

At this same time the cooperation mill was being built, and perhaps Father exerted himself too much both physically and mentally. He was stricken with what was called congestion chills, and in a few days he died, aged 68 years. Father’ death at this time was a great shock to us and was also a serious loss to the neighborhood community. It entailed on me responsibilities in a financial way that no previous occasions in that direction had occurred to help me to meet.

Fortunately for me nearly all the small obligations that were due him were settled. The main obligation was consolidated in the larger loan to George Smith, which I was able to satisfy at the suggested time the following spring with the specified amount, $2500, and receiving in return his note and his father’s endorsement, and mortgage on sufficient real estate to secure it. This ran for several years at a satisfactory rate of interest. He was very successful in his business, and also in a political way, serving in the State legislature, first in the lower house, then in the Senate for several terms. When the time came that I wished to use the money for a different purpose, he was well able to satisfy me. He died a few years later, aged 68.

Soon after Father’s death and before his will had been acted on, some business matters that were under way stopped for the want of a head, and here I had to assume the responsibility to go on with plans as formulated and soon affairs were in good working order.

The mill was being built under the supervision of a competent miller, one of the largest subscribers who had been a miller all his life. As most of the funds were advanced by Father to the subscribers in the form of loans, and as Father’s death under these conditions at once stopped construction, he—the miller—inquired of me what he should do. I told him to continue as proposed and that the necessary funds would be furnished. Work was soon resumed and in a few months the mill was completed in all its details and operations commenced. The miller’s name was Samuel Black. James Hinkley, who had lately returned from California and took a financial interest, was installed as engineer, and operations commenced and successfully continued for several years. A fine article of both flour and meal was made and found a ready and profitable market in New Orleans.

After a few days Father’s will was read and then probated.

It was satisfactory to all concerned. He appointed his nephew Anson S. Osborn and his most intimate friend Eben Ellis executors. In due time they settled the estate satisfactorily.

He had quite a library for that time and place of standard works of history, biography, and various other subjects. This collection had its beginning while he was in business in New York and additions to it in his latter days. The will specified that this was to be divided in three parts, to my sister Harriet, to Seth and myself. This was done, but it was a pity it had to be as it broke off its value as a whole.

To Seth and myself the farm, jointly or divided as we chose, to Mother a specified sum of money, and the profits of the farm during life. To Harriet a sum of money and eighty acres of land, mostly timber, two miles east of Farmersville. This bequest was intended—and did—equal in value one share in the farm. As I had but little money that I could use of my own, I had to borrow of Mother and Harriet for a time to keep farm, mill and store in successful operation.

In 1856 Harriet and James Hinkley were married. In 1857, having some funds that I felt free to use and knowing that James controlled Harriet’s legacy, I proposed a joint investment in a new business that had for some time been appealing to me.

Most of the farmers had apple orchards and by this time in full bearing. Apple bees were common—the young people getting together, and surrounding a generous pile of fine fruit would spend a pleasant evening in preparing the fruit for drying. This was done by spreading the pared and divided apples on large scaffolds in the sun, or stringing the sections on needle and thread so they could be hung up to dry in the house over the fire or unused rooms. Still, as the crop increased as the trees grew larger, there came to be quite a surplus and much left to waste.

[A bee in the 19th century was a work party.]

But now buyers began to buy up, pack and market them. Insects or disease had not injured it, and a ready and profitable market was developed. It surely seemed an easy way to make money. Why not try it on a larger scale? Here was Illinois joining us on the west with cheap lands and fine market facilities by both railroad and water in all directions. James had a small farm joining ours on which he was planting an orchard. I suggested that we go to Illinois and plant a large one.

After a few days reflection he assented to my proposition and in November 1857 we went and bought 165 acres in Washington county. We paid in due time $15.00 an acre. My cousin Anson Osborn was a nurseryman and on his farm joining ours had a fine lot of the then standard varieties, and the following spring—1858—we bought and shipped to our new purchase some three thousand trees, enough to plant eighty acres. This was one of the first, if not the first commercial orchard ever planted in the state. With some mishaps, through lack of experience, in a few years we had a fine orchard of apple and peach trees in bearing. It was a wonderful and pleasing surprise to me the extraordinary growth the trees made in that apparently worn out soil and the early response in a few years in fruit bearing. This place was 80 miles west from our home in Indiana.

We had employed a man with a family we had always known to take care of it, and they had moved there as soon as planting was finished. He was a good worker but lacked efficiency, and in a year or two they got homesick for their old associates, and returned to Indiana, necessitating a change.

At this time Miss Piper and I, after a year or more correspondence and some personal visits, were married in Lincoln, Illinois, on the 21st September 1858 and immediately went to my home.

For various reasons we thought it best to sell the farm and did so, giving possession the first of March following.

This enabled us to settle the estate in the manner the will prescribed, as the store building was on the farm yet was included in the sale, but the goods remained in the possession of the stock holders and continued business with a competent manager for some time. The mill was distinct and on ground purchased and owned by the stockholders. In both of these interests I retained and added to my shares. Previous to the sale of the farm Mother and Seth had gone to Genessee, Wisconsin, and bought a farm there.

In the spring of 1859 Mirinda and I bid goodbye to Farmersville and went to her father’s at Lincoln [Illinois], stopping a short time at the orchard where I planned some work for the tenant to do. As this was the first time Mirinda had ever been separated for any length of time from her people it was a very happy meeting. Down at the orchard there was several log buildings for stables and a large one of only one room and loft for the tenant. The Finches were living in this and had made it very comfortable. Yet it seemed necessary to build a new house if we should stay there for any length of time, so after stopping at Lincoln for a few days, I went back to make arrangements to build.

Cairo, Illinois, in the 1850s

I arranged with Finch to get out the sills, etc., and then I went down the Illinois Central Railroad to within a few miles of Cairo. There in a swampy locality was fine timber of poplar and cypress and mills competing with each other, very anxious to sell and raise a little money. For two or three days I selected and loaded on the cars quite a lot more than I had intended in the first place. I felt that it would all be needed in time and that never again could it be had at the-then prices. On getting back I was fortunate to find several carpenters wanting work, and they at once went to work, and in six weeks we had a house large enough for two small families. I then sent for Mirinda and in a few days she came and we went to housekeeping.

James Hinkley and Harriet had now sold their home in Indiana and they came and occupied one half the house and we the other. I had bought doors and sash for the windows and got the siding dressed, and we were able to putty in the glass and do the painting. The plastering of the house we left till late summer. It was managed by James while Mirinda and I were on a long visit at her father’s. We had not expected to make this our permanent home but thought to get things started and take time to look around.

With some of the surplus lumber we fixed up the old log house in good shape and we lived in part of it and boarded with the Finches while building the new house. This was Washington County Post Office and R.R. Station, a small place, some shops, two stores, a pharmacy and a very good doctor, and a large depot building in which lived the station agent, who was also the postmaster.

The location and the inhabitants did not appeal to us as a permanent place to reside, and we had not gone there with that expectation. The people were nearly all from the southern states, and consequently the society was not congenial, especially for Mirinda and Harriet. We remained there till 1860 when James and Harriet went to Rockford and Mirinda to her father’s, and I remained for a time at the orchard.

This was the year Lincoln was elected, and as I had now gained my citizenship I had the pleasure of casting my third presidential vote, and this time for the successful aspirant, for that high office, A. Lincoln. I had in 1852 voted for John P. Hebe, the free soil candidate who was defeated by Franklin Pierce and in 1856 for the gallant pathfinder John C. Fremont [who was defeated by James Buchanan]. In the fall of 1860 I made a trip on horseback to Indiana and on my return I joined Mirinda at Lincoln.

Our first child, Charles, was born at Lincoln in October 1859, and our second, Harry, in 1861. Charles was born while his Grandma was living. She died [January 1861, age 46]. We had gone there on my part that Mirinda could be with her mother for a long visit. Both of these boys were to their proud parents very handsome and were made much of by their Aunt Anna, a very bright and beautiful girl of 6 to 7 years old [she was actually 12 in the spring of 1861].

The death of Mrs. Piper occurred while we were making preparations to go there, but as we had agreed to and as Mr. Piper had asked me to come and take charge of his farm for the season, we went there in March 1861, just before Lincoln was inaugurated [inauguration day was March 20]. As soon as the season opened for farm work, the two boys [Mirinda’s brothers Asa and Charles, ages 17 and 15], and myself got to plowing and in May to planting. For reasons of his own Mr. Piper sent Charles to a friend at Mt. Pulaski and that left Asa and I to do the farm work. As there was no small grain, all the plowed ground, some twenty-five or thirty acres, was planted to corn. We got the planting done with some help in good season, and a good stand of corn rewarded our effort and after cultivation gave us a good crop.

In the place of small grain there was a large piece of heavy meadow. Now the question was how was that to be harvested? A part of it was sold on the ground to some of his friends, but the larger part was left for Asa and myself to manage. The men to whom Mr. Piper had sold a part of it went at it with their scythes, and he expected me to do the same. At this I demurred and on inquiry, I found there was a mowing machine in the vicinity that could be hired. I told Asa to look it up. I did not propose to do by hand what could be more readily done by horse power.

Mr. Piper evidently thought I was taking advantage of his offer to harvest it on the ½ shares he had proffered for managing his farm. But knowing the better way I was obdurate. Asa found the machine and employed the owner to come and cut the grass. A hay rack was found a few miles away and that being secured, we were ready for the job, and as the weather was fine, with some additional help, we soon had it all in the stack.

Soon after the corn was ready to lay by, and I was anxious to prepare for the future. James Hinkley in 1859 had left the orchard home and found Rockford satisfactory to him and had bought some property there, had a house built, and moved there in November 1860. When we got the farm work where a vacation of a few weeks would not interfere, I went to visit them—James and Harriet—at their home in Rockford. This was in July 1861. I was pleased with the town and surrounding country, and my only objection was that it was so far north. Realizing that the sisterly sympathy existing between Harriet and Mirinda was a strong factor in making a new home, I took an option for a short time on a lot of seven acres in the city limits adjoining James’ tract of ten acres. The price was about $200 an acre.

Then before closing the deal I went back to Lincoln and soon after down to the orchard. The Finches having left, I installed a new tenant—James Longfellow.

I then went to Farmersville, Indiana, on horseback, a two day trip. This was not a pleasant one. The Civil War was raging, the people were largely southern sympathizers and the Union men kept quiet. At one small village a peculiar and suspicious flag was flying. I went in a public house where there was on the floor the national emblem [the flag of the United States]. Seeing it there, I made an inquiry about the unfurled emblem. I received no satisfactory answer, but the approach of a number of apparent investigators suggested that it might be the part of prudence to resume my journey.


The next day I reached Farmersville. The store buildings with most of the goods had burned the year previous and a very modern store occupied its place. The old cooperative company was superseded by an individual management. My loss by the burned store was several hundred dollars. The mill was still adding to my income in a very generous manner.

On this occasion I settled up all my business there, and in order to do so in one case took a nice buggy to balance an account. Buying a harness, I put my horse to the buggy, my saddle and belongings, including quite a sum of money, in it and started on my return trip.

On my return from Indiana on this occasion I stopped at the orchard for several days. We had quite a drove of hogs, some 60 or 70 head that with proper feed would be marketable in a few months. While in Farmersville a former neighbor was inquiring for stock of that kind to feed, and knowing that we had not sufficient corn at Dubois of our own, I thought this a good chance to get rid of them. Getting a good offer, I sold the lot to be delivered at a town on the Wabash about 70 miles away. This plan was carried out and a check for quite a sum was received.

As the horse that had taken me to and from Indiana could not be spared from the farm, it had to be replaced. Having a number of unbroken colts, I exchanged two of them for a fine large one and started on the way to Lincoln where I arrived after ten days’ absence.

I now closed up the deal for the lots in Rockford. As money at this time was in great demand I received a large rebate for the cash payment of the whole sum. I made arrangements with a carpenter in Rockford to build a house, indicating as near as I could by letter the point or place to build and sending the plan I wished followed.

Ellen Hall, an adopted girl of Mother’s that had been with us for some time and all the while we were at Lincoln helping in the housework on the farm, was sent to Rockford by railroad and also all our household goods.

Here is the final episode. Part 5: Fruit Farming and Permanent Roots in Rockford

The Memoirs of John Andrews, Part 3

Here are the previous parts of the memoirs:
Part 1: School Days, 1835 to 1850
Part 2: Relatives and Travels
Part 2a: That Daguerreotype

Farm Inventions, Politics, and Business

After our long vacation I felt that I must be doing, but as it was the beginning of winter, farm work for the present was largely suspended. Stock had to be cared for, wood provided for the coming year, fences repaired, and sundry jobs as they came up.

Father was an enthusiastic conservator of any material that would add fertility to the soil and looked upon the universal habit of burning the old cornstalks to get them out of the way for the succeeding crop as a waste. He sought for some way to avoid that and even went to the expense of time and labor in cutting them up by hand. This was slow work, but very necessary then so that with the plows we had, they would be put out of [the] way of future cultivating. It was suggested that a tool might be made to do the work as well, and I was put on the job and succeeded. This was operated by horse power and was about the first move in the practical employment of mechanical versus hand labor. There was a plow exhibited at the Fair that so interested me, that on my detailing it to Father, the next time he went to Cincinnati he bought one, and the result was almost a revolution in preparing the ground for crops. In the mowing machine I saw a great possibility of relief of that hardest, heaviest hand labor of the summer, work in the meadows with the scythe, and I decided that in due time it must take its place on the farm.

Revolving hay rake

I think it was in 1848 that we got a revolving hay rake, the first real labor saving machine, as it efficiently and rapidly did the work of the hand rake in collecting the hay into windrows. This was a great help in the meadow and was used for some years before and after the advent of the mower until the steel tooth horse rake superseded it.

Steel mower of the 1840s

In the spring of 1854 some of my neighbors had the chance to get mowers and reapers. I got a mower.

Manny mower-reaper

Some got combined mower and reaper—by the way the latter were made by F.H. Manny of Rockford—somehow I did not consider the reaper a real labor saver, and my after experience satisfied that I was right, but the mower lifted a heavy burden from the farmer, and tired arms and aching back felt a glad relief when the scythe was hung up in the old mulberry tree. The mower was a crude affair, but it would cut grass at the rate of eight or ten acres per day, and also left it in the condition to dry without further attention until it was ready for the rake. Father for years had grown an early variety of grass called Orchard Grass, in a small way, as a supplement to piece out the depleted hay mow, and as no one else had it, it gave me the opportunity to be the first one to use a mower in the county.

The McCormick reaper

The reaper was a success so far as the mere cutting was concerned, but was a failure in reducing the expense of harvesting. It required the reaper—with a team and two men to operate it and at least five more to bind and shock; the maximum that was cut was eight acres per day, whereas with the cradle two men were expected to cut, bind and shock at least three to four acres. Myself and another by frequent changing from cutting to binding often put four acres in shock. It appears a paradox. But there were those so skilled in the use of the cradle that they could cut and deliver to the binder following as much as the reaper up to its maximum of eight acres. I once heard a man offer to bet one hundred dollars that he could cut with the cradle eleven acres and got no takers.

A team of men using scythe and cradle

Yes in those days as now, storms sometimes lodged the grain so that it could not be cut with cradles, and as up to this time resort was had to the sickle, a slow process and every day had to be utilized to save the crop and on Sundays the neighbors would meet at some farm where the owner was disabled or behind and help out. This was before the coming of the threshing machine. The old Egyptian and old testament threshing floor was still in vogue, and horses feet did the threshing and to save handling so much straw the tangled grain was thus harvested until the thresher came. In 1856 I became the possessor of a two horse tread power machine which could be used for various purposes. We could now cut the tangled grain with the mower and run it through the thresher. About this time some other types of threshers were introduced, but none exceeded the tread power in ability. But the increase in power of from two to eight horses would naturally result in a large increase, but in fact a number of those sweep powers broke down. I had employed a man to do custom work, and he had to finish up jobs unfinished.

A two-horse treadmill thresher

But all of these machines, including mine, merely passed it through, rakers had to remove the stem and then the grain through the fanning mill to separate the chaff. This improvement of the reaper continued. The self rake took the place of the hand rake, dispensing with the necessity of one man, only the driver was now needed. Soon came the Marsh harvester, when two active men riding on the machine bound the conveniently and automatically delivered sheaths.

Inventive genius was not yet satisfied; a self-binding attachment was sought and several attempts were made. The Burson brothers of Rockford made a wire binder, but it required two men to operate it. A number of their machines were made and distributed, but it was soon abandoned as the farmers found that their cattle in eating the straw as it came from the thresher also swallowed the wire with bad results.

Recourse was now turned to twine for the purpose and finally was accomplished, and I think that Mr. Graham a citizen of Rockford is entitled to the credit. The improvement in threshers kept pace with the binder. In delivering the grain cleaned for market, or for use, yet another great step followed in change from animal power to steam, making it possible to largely increase its capacity. I have wandered a long way from Posey County, Indiana, to Rockford, Illinois, and will try to return with my balking pen to the proper place in this erratic story.

Zachary Taylor

Millard Fillmore

Father was a Whig in politics. Our county and state normal was Democratic. The later Presidents were Democratic, but in 1842, the eclat of the Mexican War brought the successful General Taylor to the front as a candidate and by a large majority he was chosen as President. In a few months he died, leaving Vice-President Fillmore to fill out his term.

For several years a new element had been injected in the political pot. More liberal and uplifting political ideas were seething in the minds of many in both parties, and in 1852 a new party was formed and put a liberal anti-slavery man as candidate for the presidency—John P. Hale. Having reached my majority for the first time I had the privilege of exercising my political duty and did so by voting my county, state and national prejudices. If I remember right I lost on each count.

Meanwhile my farm work continued, and also I took an interest in the store and its management. Eleaser Ellis, the inaugurator with Father in the cooperative idea, was general clerk. The time came when it was necessary to have a name, and it was christened Farmer’s Protective Union, and goods were bought and shipped, produce bought and sold, and exchange was carried on under that name.

The business was a source of vexation to the merchants of Mount Vernon as cheaper prices curtailed their profits, and efforts were made to counteract this effect without avail. Both buying and selling was strictly cash. Some few of the farmers’ products were bought or exchanged for goods, but the principal thing was eggs. These came in large numbers, packed in barrels of 90 dozen eggs and three bushels oats, and were sent to New Orleans by steamboat. I do not think a lot thus handled ever failed to bring a handsome profit.

A mill for grinding grain—making flour and meal—was built and operated on the same plan as the store, but its operation was in such large excess of home demands that a profitable business resulted in sending the surplus to market. With the exception of these articles, I believe there was nothing else handled for profit.

The year 1854 was the dryest and some months the hottest ever known in Posey County. Winter wheat—we grew no spring wheat—was fine and also the hay was very good, but the corn crop on the whole was very meager, probably not more than five bushels per acre. Owing to wrong cultivation many fields were an utter failure. I gave our corn field excessive surface cultivation and had on an average over twenty bushels.

In the harvest that year I became overheated, perspiration stopped, and I had to seek the shade. I could work in the shade or night, but in the sun where it was necessary, unless some means could be found to counteract it, it would be death to work. In those days we wore top boots. I got a pail of water and wet my head and clothes thoroughly, filled my boots with water and was able to resume my labors and for more than twenty years I had to resort to my pail of water in very hot sunshine. Now I am thankful nature has run out and think I could endure the heat of equatorial sunshine with composure. The trouble was that perspiration ceased in the hot sunshine. The wet clothing answered in its place, evaporation keeping the body cool.

Here is Part 4: Father’s Death, Marriage to Mirinda, and New Business Ventures.