JESSE ELLEDGE AND Jesse Scholl were noted characters of the early settlement where now is Winchester. Jesse Scholl
was Jesse Elledge's son-in-law. In 1819 in Kentucky, Jesse Scholl, a son of Mary Boone, married Charity Elledge,
a granddaughter of Charity Boone, who was Mary Boone's sister, they being daughters of Edward Boone, a brother
of Daniel. Jesse Elledge, father of Charity, was Charity Boone's son.
Jesse Elledge and Jesse Scholl were called "old" even when they were young. Reckoned among the founding
fathers of a new civilization here in the west, they assumed patriarchal stature early in life. The late Samuel
Peak of Winchester, born in 1840, remembered hearing it said that these two men were always known in the early
settlement as Old Jesse Elledge and Old Jesse Scholl. Elledge was also known as Old Preacher Elledge.
Elledge and Scholl were identified in the early 1820s with a group of vigilantes known in those days as the "Regulators
of the Valley." The history of this secret organization has already been recited. Before the law came to the
valley, the "Regulators" established their own rude courts, haled offending culprits before a hooded
tribunal, and dealt summary justice according to the border code.
The Regulators, of which Elledge and Scholl were reputed leaders, served well in that tumultuous period before
the law was established. The organization, at first a power for good and composed of the best citizens, later,
with the ascendancy of the courts, fell into disrepute and into the hands of mob elements. It had reached the height
of its power in the valley prior to 1825.
Samuel William Peak, who died in Winchester in November, 1936, at the age of 96, in an interview shortly before
his death, related many incidents in the lives of old Jesse Elledge and old Jesse Scholl, both of whom he had known
well. He remembered particularly the stories the pioneers had told of their connection with the early Regulators.
He related one incident of the whipping of a man who had been found guilty by the Regulators of some infringement
of the border code, and had been strung up and was being subjected to a hundred lashes on his bare back. "A
hundred lashes, well laid on," had been the sentence of the masked court. Among the layers on of the lash
was old Jesse Scholl armed with a stout peach sprout.
Each member of the Regulators took his turn in the "laying on." When it came Scholl's turn, the wielder
of the peach sprout unguardedly raised his voice, exclaiming: "Let me to him; I'll give him a taste of this
peach juice!" and proceeded to lay on unmercifully. The culprit who was being whipped recognized old Jesse
Scholl's voice, which came near costing Scholl his life.
Mr. Peak related that Jesse Scholl was a great coon hunter. One night he went alone to hunt coons in the Illinois
bottoms. The man who had been whipped somehow heard of his plan and laid in wait for him in the wild and unpopulated
bottom. Scholl, while crawling under a rail fence, was shot from ambush by this man who, believing Scholl dead,
fled the country, never to return.
Scholl, badly wounded, far from any human habitation, crawled through the wilderness undergrowth, coming, after
hours of struggle, to a lone hunter's cabin where his wounds were crudely dressed. He eventually recovered. The
episode, however, marked the beginning of the end of the Regulators of the Valley. With the identity of one of
the leaders becoming known throughout the settlement, the power of the secret confederacy was broken. For eight
years the organization had been all-powerful in the maintenance of law and order; with its mission fulfilled, it
passed into history.
Mr. Peak recalled the tradition of the converting in early days of the outlaw, Percifield, by Preacher Elledge.
He said he had heard it related that from this conversion there had come a new kind of life in the valley, with
the old outlaw days yielding to the new order.
Jesse Bryan Scholl, who married Jesse Elledge's first child, Charity, was born in Clark county, Kentucky, November
30, 1797, the eighth child of Peter Scholl and Mary Boone. His middle name was for his grandmother, Martha Bryan,
wife of Edward Boone and sister of Rebecca Bryan, wife of Edward's brother Daniel. Jesse Bryan Scholl was a brother
of Malinda Scholl, who married Edward (Neddie) Elledge and settled in what is now Scott county in 1822. Malinda,
following the death of Neddie in 1829, married in 1832 Pike county pioneer Joseph Jackson, and they settled in
Pleasant Vale township where Malinda died in 1865. Jesse Scholl was also a brother of Pike county pioneer Edward
Boone Scholl, who founded the town of Booneville, which later became Perry, in Pike county, Illinois.
On September 1, 1818, three months before Illinois became a state, Jesse Scholl married Jesse Elledge's daughter,
Charity. The marriage was in Kentucky. A year later (September, 1819) Charity's father, Jesse Elledge, married
as his second wife Elizabeth Philips, daughter of Kentucky Nimrod.
Shortly after these marriages, Jesse Elledge and his family, Jesse Scholl and his family, Dudley Scholl and his
family (Dudley, a brother of Jesse, had married a daughter of Nancy Elledge Norris), and Nimrod Philips and his
family (Nimrod had married as his second wife Mrs. Nancy Elledge Norris), all came up over the difficult trail
from Kentucky to the region that is now Scott county.
Elizabeth Philips, second wife of Jesse Elledge, was a sister of Sally Philips, who in Kentucky in 1806 or 1807
married the elder Solomon Hornback, her first son being the noted Derry township pioneer, William Hornback, who
carried the mail between Atlas and Rock island in the winter of the deep snow, 1830-31. Preacher Elledge's wife
was also a sister of Ann Philips who was the wife of the early Blue Creek settler, George Bickerdike, first of
the English Bickerdikes to come to America.
Jesse Bryan Scholl died at his settlement three and one-half miles southwest of Winchester, February 6, 1859, aged
61 years, two months and six days. His wife Charity, daughter of Preacher Elledge, died there October 6, 1878,
aged 83 years, one month and 28 days.
Jesse Scholl and Charity Elledge had four children, namely, James M., Edward Boone, Lydia and Francis Marion Scholl.
All were natives of what is now Scott county.
James M. Scholl married Matilda Killebrew in Scott county May 2, 1844. She died August 18, 1850, aged 26 years,
four months and nine days. James Scholl married a second time on April 4, 1854, his second wife being Eliza B.
Claywell of the noted Scott county family of that name. They moved to Newton, Kansas. Two of their children, William
A. and John F. Scholl, are buried in the old Claywell burying ground southwest of Winchester.
Edward Boone Scholl, another son of Jesse Scholl and Charity Elledge and grandson of Preacher Elledge, was born
in Morgan (now Scott) county September 11, 1826. He married Lucy King in Scott county March 7, 1852. They had four
children, James M., John R., Emma and Jesse B. Scholl.
James M. Scholl, born October 11, 1853, died August 5, 1862; he is buried in Claywell cemetery.
John R. Scholl, born in Scott county in 1856, married Emma J. McGlasson of Glasgow in Scott county, November 6,
1881. She was a daughter of Robert and Martha F. Adams McGlasson. John R. Scholl was again married May 26, 1917,
at the age of 60, his second wife being Eva M. Evans of Winchester.
Emma Scholl, born in Scott county in 1861, at the age of 19 on December 5, 1880, married Absalom McGlasson of Glasgow
(Scott county), a brother of Emma J., who married John R. They were married at Winchester, which was the bride's
home.
Jesse B. Scholl, another son of Edward Boone and Lucy King Scholl, was born in Scott county in 1862, and on September
5, 1886 at the age of 24, was married at Winchester to Sallie J. Milliken, daughter of William and Jane Clark Milliken.
Lydia Scholl, daughter of Jesse Bryan Scholl and Charity Elledge, was married at Winchester November 17, 1850,
to William E. Shastid. They moved to the vicinity of Decatur, Illinois, and both died there, he first and she some
time later.
Marion Scholl, son of Jesse and Charity, married Betsey Ann Weddle. He died on the old Bird Peak farm southwest
of Winchester. He and his brother, Edward Boone Scholl, are both buried in the Claywell cemetery, in a remote and
unkept plot in the midst of a farm.
Edward Boone Scholl died April 28, 1909. He was born September 11, 1826, according to the stone that marks his
grave. His wife, Lucy King, lies beside him in the Claywell plot. Born June 1, 1829, she died November 25, 1899.
On the old Joel Claywell farm, two and a half miles southwest of Winchester, in an unkept and overgrown plot remote
from any road, is another of the lost burying grounds of the Boone kin. Here, "where heaves the turf in many
a moldering heap," lie the rude forefathers of that early settlement. Here in graves, some of them unmarked
and wholly lost, sleep numerous of the descendants of Charity and Mary Boone, daughters of Edward. Weathered stones
still standing at some of the graves tell the story of these Boone burials.
Beneath a stone that is yet standing and on which the inscription is still traceable, lies the first born of Old
Preacher Elledge's children, the daughter Charity, born in Kentucky in 1795, who came as a young bride to the Sangamo
country when the tepees of the Indians still stood along the Mauvaisterre. She lived until 1878, dying at the age
of 83, a pioneer of the first settlement, a granddaughter of the pioneering Boones. Beside her lies her husband,
Jesse Bryan Scholl, a son of Mary Boone and a grandson of Edward. He was buried there in 1859.
Here also are the graves of Edward Boone and Francis Marion Scholl, grandsons of Mary Boone and great grandsons
of Charity Boone; also the grave of Matilda Killebrew Scholl, the first wife of their brother, James M., and the
graves of William A. and John F. Scholl, sons of the elder James M. Scholl and Eliza B. Claywell; also the grave
of a younger James M. Scholl, son of Edward Boone and his wife, Lucy King. Here, too, is a stone marking the burial
of Emily J. Mikel, daughter of Hugh Mikel and Charity Scholl, the latter the youngest daughter of peter Scholl
and Mary Boone.
Others of the early settlement inhabiting this city of the dead include the Claywells, Crabtrees, Hambletons, Nollys,
Montgomerys, Stices, McClures, Andersons, Haddocks, Cains and Van Meters, the latter being relatives of the early
Pike county Chenoweths. On these burial stones the name Scholl sometimes appears as "Schull" and sometimes
as "Shull," which are also the spellings appearing in the early records of Morgan and Scott counties.
The name Van Meter appears on the burial markers as Vanmatre. One stone bears this simple inscription: "William
Ray Vanmatres Grave."
Jesse Scholl had numerous brothers and sisters who played important roles in the drama of western settlement. Among
them was the second Dudley Scholl (the first Dudley having died in infancy), who came to this region with Jesse
Elledge and Jesse Scholl. Dudley Scholl was born in Kentucky in 1803, being the next born after his brother, Edward
Boone, founder of Perry. He married his cousin, Katherine (Kitty Ann) Norris, a daughter f Nancy Elledge, who was
a daughter of Francis Elledge and Charity Boone. Nancy had first married a Norris, her second marriage being to
Nimrod Philips.
Dudley Scholl settled where now is Winchester, the county seat of Scott. Archibald E. Hite was selling both dry
and wet goods on Big Sandy, just east of present Winchester. Across one corner of his log drygoods store was a
plank, over which he dealt his liquors. Glass tumblers being out of the question for serving whiskey, he used a
common tin pepper box, which he sold the full of for 6 1/4 cents. He later built a log house where Winchester now
is, on the road from Jacksonville to Meacham's Ferry (now Montezuma).
David Casebeer, an early settler in old Morgan, had a tannery and was tanning leather just south of Winchester.
It was at Casebeer's that Jesse Elledge helped organize the first Baptist church in the valley. Hite and Casebeer
conceived the idea of a town and laid out a plot into town lots. It was agreed that whoever treated to a gallon
of whiskey should have the privilege of naming the new town. Hite sent for the whiskey and after all hands had
taken a "bumper," he named it for his native town of Winchester in Clark county, Kentucky.
Hite on October 8, 1831 sold Dudley Scholl three town lots and part of another, adjoining the public square on
the north side, in the town of Winchester. Here Scholl opened a log store. He had as neighbor E. G. Miner, who
occupied a store in a plank house adjoining the site of the old Hainsfurther store at the northwest corner of the
square. In this primitive building, Miner, yet unmarried, kept store and batched, sometimes partaking of the hospitality
of Dudley Scholl and his wife, Kitty Ann.
One day in November, 1833, Scholl and Miner, loafing in front of the latter's store, saw a stranger approaching
on foot out on the prairie. They swapped guesses as to who the stranger might be and what might be his business.
His clothing, everything about him, branded him as a "greenhorn." As he came nearer it was apparent that
he was a mere youth. Coming up to where Scholl and Miner were standing, he introduced him and inquired as to the
opportunity in the neighborhood for a young fellow willing to work and whether or not there was any school teacher
in the settlement.
The lad soon wormed his way into the good graces of both men. He had a rather winning personality. He was tired
and hungry. He said he had come all the way from Canandaigua, New York, and had walked from Jacksonville to the
new settlement and had only 37 ½ cents in his pocket. Both Scholl and Miner offered him hospitality. Miner
being a bachelor, it was finally agreed that the youth should share Miner's bachelor quarters in the plank store.
Winchester at this time was still a raw hamlet. The south side of the newly-platted square was still in dense hazelbrush.
There was little for one with the youth's particular talents to do in the new town. Miner, however, succeeded in
getting him a job as clerk to an auctioneer at an administrator's sale. This job lasted three days and he got six
dollars for it. With Miner's help the young fellow, who was proficient in books, finally got 40 pupils together.
He taught school five days a week, studied law at night and practiced in a rude J. P. court on Saturdays. Thus
Stephen A. Douglas, future United States senator and great opponent of Lincoln, got his start in the west.
The Miner and Scholl families intermarried. G. L. Miner, in Pike county on January 1, 1837, married Julia Ann Scholl,
a daughter of Dudley and Kitty Ann (Norris) Scholl, with the Rev. James Elledge officiating. Charlotte F. Scholl,
another daughter of Dudley and Kitty Ann, married Henry Little in Pike county March 23, 1843. Preacher Jesse Elledge
officiated also at this wedding ceremony, he being then a resident of Pike county.
Dudley and Kitty Ann Scholl had eight children but there is local record of only Julia Ann and Charlotte. The entire
family on leaving the Illinois country moved to Atchison county, Kansas, and there Dudley and Kitty Ann are buried.
Lydia Ann Scholl, another sister of old Jesse Scholl, married Boone Hays, a grandson of Daniel Boone, being a son
of Daniel's daughter Susanna. Lydia Ann was born in Kentucky in 1789. She married her first cousin, Boone Hays,
January 3, 1807. They settled in Callaway county, Missouri, and Boone Hays there built the first horse-mill in
that part of the country. In the gold rush of 1849, Boone Hays headed a wagon train across the plains to the gold
fields, being joined in that adventure by his kinsman, Uriah Elledge of Pike county, Illinois, and Uriah's son,
Daniel Boone Elledge. Boone Hays, whose first wife had died and who later married a Mrs. Frazier of Memphis, Tennessee,
died soon after reaching the gold country, his death occurring in 1850 in Marysville, California.
Other children of Peter Scholl and Mary Boone, cousins of the children of Francis Elledge and Charity Boone, were
Martha Scholl, born in 1785, who married Horton Wells, had 13 children, and died October 10, 1840; John Scholl,
born in 1787, who married Linah Jones, had two sons and eight daughters, and died in Callaway county, Missouri;
Joseph Scholl, born in 1791, who married Malinda Mure, had ten children, and died in Kentucky in 1856; Peter Morgan
Scholl, born in 1799, who married Elizabeth Huls on March 17, 1823, had several sons, moved to Missouri in 1829
and died there, in Callaway county, a few days after his arrival; Mary Scholl, born in 1805, who married A. T.
Hays, a Baptist preacher, and died in Missouri.
Louisa Scholl, born in 1807, married first, in Kentucky, Francis Key, a brother of Marshall Key who married Abraham
Scholl's daughter Sally, and settled in Griggsville, going thence to Wisconsin where he and his wife died. Louisa
Scholl's second husband was Thomas K. Norris, a son of Nancy Elledge Philips, whose first husband was a Norris
and who later married Nimrod Philips. Louisa Scholl Key and Thomas K. Norris were married in Pike county on March
13, 1835 with the Rev. Jesse Elledge officiating.
Charity Scholl, born in Kentucky in June, 1809, was the last born of the 14 children of Peter Scholl and Mary Boone.
She married Hugh Mikel in Morgan (now Scott) county in 1826, and they had 12 children. One child, Emily J., died
near Winchester January 2, 1866 and is buried in Claywell cemetery. The family lived for many years in Adair county,
Missouri, and Charity is buried there. One of her sons, Samuel Mikel, married Preacher Jesse Elledge's great granddaughter,
the eldest daughter of James M. Scholl and Eliza Claywell, at Newton, Kansas.
Peter Scholl and Mary Boone had 14 children and 98 (known) grandchildren.