THE FOUNDERS OF QUINCY, ILLINOIS JOHN WOOD, By WILLIAM A. RICHARDSON, Jr. Early in the month of February of the year 1820, down in what is now Calhoun (then Madison) County, Illinois, Willard Keyes and John Wood met for the first time as members of a company of men who had come together to explore the "Bounty Lands" in the lower part of the "Military Tract.” Willard Keyes was born in Windham County, Vermont, on the 28th day of October, 1792. He was educated in the schools of his native county. After being graduate from the schools, he taught in them, worked on his father's farm and at his trade of wool-dying. When he was twenty-four years and past "curiosity impelled" him, as he expressed it in his journal, to see something of the western part of his country. So, on the 2nd of June, 1817, he fared forth afoot from his neighboring town of Newfane for Albany and thence for Rome, New York, thence by Wood creek to Oneida lake, and thence by Osage river to Lake Ontario. He crossed the lake to York, Canada, thence up and down rivers and across lakes -Simcoe among the rest-in canoe, to Georgian bay, an arm of Lake Huron. Finding that the ship that they had expected to take had sailed a day or two before they got to Nottowasauge, they procured passage in a row and sail boat to Mackinaw, thence in an Indian trading boat to Green Bay. Thence up the Fox and down the Wisconsin rivers to Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi. Here he assisted, as carpenter and mill-wright, in the erection of a horse-power grist mill and also a water-power mill. He ran one of these mills. He taught school. In January of 1819 he went into the "pineries" and got out some timber and shingles which, in the spring he assembled into a raft and, on the 30th day of April, 1819, he left Prairie du Chien and started off, down the river, for Saint Louis-passing the point where Quincy now stands on the 10th of May. He stopped where Hannibal is, also at Louisiana and Clarksville, on account of malaria. In the fall and early winter of 1819-1820 he taught school at Salt Prairie in what was then Madison, now Calhoun, County. John Wood was born at Moravia, Cayuga County, New York, on the 20th of December, 1798. When a little less than twenty years old the wanderlust impelled him, too, to see some other part of his country. So, on the 2nd of November, 1818, he hiked off for Cincinnati, Ohio, with a half-formed intention of going to the Tennessee river valley in Northern Alabama. He spent the winter of 1818-1819 in Cincinnati. The next summer he came down to Shawneetown in this State. The winter of 1819-1820 he spent in what is now Calhoun County. This acquaintance, thus made, grew into a warm friendship which lasted during their lives. And yet how different they were! Mr. Keyes was quiet and loved his books, while Governor Wood was an outdoor man-noisy and bluff and hale and hearty. This party, consisting of Captain Nixon, Mr. Dutton, Mr. Keyes and Mr. Wood, started from Mr. Dutton's houseTownship 11 South, 2 West-on the 10th of February, 1820, and went over the hills to the Illinois river valley and up this valley as far as the base line (Beardstown) and a little farther, it then turned west. It camped at what is now Camp Point, then known as "The Indian Camping Point," where there was a fine spring of water in a point of timber that came out into the prairie. This party went a little west of Camp Point and then turned south. When government maps told them they were twelve miles east of the point where the bluffs came out to the Mississippi river-the only point on the east side between the mouth of the Illinois river and Fort Edwards, now Warsaw, where the bluffs did come out to the waterMr. Keyes and Mr. Wood wanted to go out and examine the country there, but before they could persuade the older members to go a threatening storm-cloud appeared in the west and they all galloped off to the neighboring creek timber where they camped for the night-this was one of the forks of what is now known as Mill creek. In the morning the other three members wanted to resume their journey southward, and so Messrs. Keyes and Wood, being on borrowed horses, reluctantly went along. They went south, exploring as they went, to the place of beginning. Nixon, Dutton and Gates were married men, and they had seen nothing that could induce them to bring their wives and children up into this wild country. I am going to let Mr. Keyes tell the story for a little while. He says: "Wood and myself, perhaps more sanguine than the older ones, concluded to locate temporarily fifty miles north of civilization on the 16th, or school, section in township 5 south of range 6 west. In May, 1820, we became squatters on a creek, since called Keyes' creek, in Pike County, with two yoke of steers, a cow, a few swine, with the most necessary farming implements, being provided with maps, charts and field notes of the bounty lands, and we soon became farmers and famous land hunters, and holding correspondence with land owners of soldiers' patents in various parts of the country, we had frequent applications to hunt up quarter sections for different owners, at the very moderate price of one dollar per day and find ourselves." (New Canton, down thirty odd miles in Pike County, is situated on said section 16, and the cabin that Keyes and Wood built was only a little ways down the creek-now called "Kiser creek" on the maps- from this town. The old cabin remained intact for many years. I saw it and was in it when the Louisiana Branch of the C. B. & Q. R. R. was being built in the seventies of the last century.) Mr. Keyes continues the story: "In 1821, a man by the name of Flynn, living on Wood river, a few miles back of Alton, applied for aid to find his land. Wood started with him and found his land located on the very spot where John Wood's orchard is now growing (1864). Flynn was dissatisfied, his land was too far off from civilization. On the contrary, Wood came home enraptured. As Wood's disease was contagious I took it, perhaps in a milder form. However, I soon chartered a horse of our nearest neighbor, who had recently moved within six or eight miles of us, and resolved to come and see. I encamped near the foot of Vermont street, and spent some time in tracing lines and exploring the adjoining country. I returned, satisfied with seeing, for the half had not been told me." Mr. Keyes continues: "Individual pre-emption claims on government land was then unknown. We feared to improve on such land lest we should be driven off by wealthy purchasers. So we resolved to try and buy Flynn's land, and Wood started on foot to see him-120 miles to Alton; but Flynn was absent from home. Wood left word that we would buy his land and returned. Presently Flynn footed it up to sell his land. We were willing to give him his price, but wanted time for the payment. But he said he would only sell for cash, as he wanted to help some relatives to emigrate from Ireland. Cash was always a myth in that part of Illinois in those days, but by great exertions ceeded in raising sixty dollars, the half of his original price, for which he made us a good deed." * we suc This Peter Flynn deed conveys the S. W. Qr. Sec. 1, Township 2 South, Range 9 West, and is dated November 19, 1822. Its northern corners are in the middle of 12th and 18th streets a little north of Kentucky street, and its southern corners are in said streets a little north of Madison street. The "Historical Building," the second, possibly third, home of Governor John Wood is on this quarter. "In the fall of 1822, Wood came up and making 'camp' on the banks of the river near the foot of Delaware street, commenced the erection of the first building within the limits of the present city. This log cabin was finished on the 8th day of December, 1822," according to General John Tillson, Governor Wood's son-in-law. * * Captain Henry Asbury's History of Quincy says that Jeremiah Rose was born in Stephenson, Rensselaer County, New York, in 1792; that he married Miss Margaret Brown in 1815; that he moved to Illinois in the fall of 1821 and settled at Atlas in Pike County; that in the fall of 1822 he had prepared to build, in partnership with John Wood, a cabin at what is now Quincy; that when the time came for commencing the work, however, Mr. Rose was prostrated by sickness; that he therefore hired a man to fill his place, who, aiding Mr. Wood, put up the cabin; that Mr. Rose moved the following spring with his wife and daughter; that Mrs. Rose was thus the first woman settler of Quincy, and the daughter, now Mrs. George W. Brown, (1882) the first child resident. Captain Asbury goes on to say that Mr. Rose resided in this cabin until 1826, when he sold out to Mr. Wood and bought him a farm just north of Quincy. Thus you see, while Governor Wood was the only one of the three who came here in 1822, the other two were here in interest-the one detained by sickness and the other looking after the partnership property; trying to sell the cabin and dispose of the cultivated land down on Keyes' creek. These three men, Governor John Wood, Mr. Willard Keyes and Major Jeremiah Rose, are our pioneer founders; and their names should be linked together in any thought of the centennial of the coming of Governor Wood. And there are two other names that should be linked with these three: Those of Mrs. Margaret Brown Rose and Miss Lucy Rosefor they are our pioneer women. In 1822, almost all the settlements of Illinois were in the southern part and almost all the settlers had come from slave states-practically all the inhabitants were either Southerners or French. This fact, and the fact that the French owned slaves, induced the pro-slavery element to move for a constitutional convention that would commit the State to slavery. Governor Edward Coles, a Virginian, led the fight against the convention and that won the battle for free soil. But this is another story. |