A MILE NORTH OF BETHEL church and churchyard (where sleep many pioneers of Detroit, Griggsville, Flint and Newburg),
on the west side of the Griggsville-Detroit road, stands the historic "cabin in the wildwood," the oldest
log cabin now standing in the county. It was built in 1827 by George Bickerdike, first of the English Bickerdikes
in America, the pioneering adventurer who blazed the way for the present numerous family of his name in Pike county.
With his own hands, aided only by the rude tools of the pioneer, the first Bickerdike builded his home in the wilderness.
He built it of logs, felled and hewn with a broad-axe in the neighboring forest, which then frowned in dark loneliness
upon his little clearing, hemming it in on all sides. With a cunning that seems amazing, considering the inadequacy
of his tools, he fitted his hewn logs at the corners in a manner that challenges the admiration of those of today
who pause to view the decaying remnants of the ancient cabin, now leaning toward final collapse.
In this rude abode, the first Bickerdike spent the early years of his life in America as a bachelor; to this log
cabin he brought his bride, Ann Philips, daughter of Nimrod of the Philips Ferry, in 1832. Here, in the Bickerdike
cabin, the Burlend family, Mother Rebecca and Father john, with their five children, emigrating from their native
Yorkshire in 1831, found shelter in the late fall of that year, until they could contrive their own abode. In this
log home, Philipses were born; within its walls Philips children had their bridals; within one of its two small
rooms the family's dead lay in shrouds of snow. For three-quarters of a century the cabin was the home of Philipses.
The cabin stands on the east side of the southeast quarter of Section 35 in Griggsville township on land now owned
by Anson Moore, son of William D. Moore and Emma Lightle. Survivors of an old orchard and a few majestic shade
tree of the ancient forest stand adjacent to the abandoned cabin, where flowed free-hearted hospitality in the
days of the early Philipses.
Rebecca Burlend, in her narrative of pioneer life in Pike county, entitled "A True Picture of Emigration,"
first printed in England in 1848, gives us a picture of the early Bickerdike cabin, to which the Burlend family,
following their arrival here, removed after a three days' sojourn with the Andrew Philipses, at the Philips Ferry
Landing. The following is from Mrs. Burlend's narrative:
"During our sojourn at Mr. Phillips', my husband found Mr. B. (Mr. Bickerdike, their fellow countryman) and
on the third day after our arrival, brought that gentleman's team, two stiff oxen yoked to a clumsy sledge; on
which we placed our beds, boxes, etc., and bid goodby to Mrs. P. (Jane Philips, wife of Andrew), who, as we paid
her for our harbour, contrived to shed a tear or two at the thoughts of parting.
"After arriving at Mr. B.'s house (the one yet standing north of Bethel), I certainly felt I had been a little
cajoled. My husband had seen him the day before, but had made no mention of his condition. He was in the fields
when we arrived; but as the door was unlocked, or rather lockless, we took the liberty of introducing ourselves
and luggage.
"Mr. B. was at once a bachelor and solitaire. He had left England precipitately, and what is more unusual,
a great part of his money, which at this time he was daily expecting by a remittance. The property he had taken
with him was all expended in land and cattle, so that a little money was a desideratum.
"Shortly after our arrival, Mr. B. made his appearance, which as I before intimated, was rather mysterious.
In his letters sent to England, he had spoken of his situation as ‘a land flowing with milk and honey'; but I assure
you, patient reader, his appearance would have led anyone to suppose that he gathered his honey rather from thorns
than flowers.
"He was verily as ragged as a sheep. And his house was more like the cell of a hermit who aims at super-excellence
by enduring privations than the cottage of an industrious peasant. The bed on which he slept was only like a bolster
which he had used on shipboard, and laid a kind of shelf of his own constructing. Then again the walls of his house
were of hewn timbers as others, but the joinings or interstices were left quite open.
"The first night I passed in this miserable abode I was almost perished. My husband was obliged to heat a
flatiron, and after wrapping it in flannel, apply it to my feet, so little were we protected from the inclemency
of the weather. Finding our comforts here so few, we determined to have a home of our own as soon as possible.
Mr. B. was too busy in his farm to render my husband much assistance in selecting a piece of ground. Besides the
condition of the haut-de-chausse (meaning his trousers, the phrase showing the part played in the narrative by
Mrs. Burlend's schoolmaster son, Edward) rendered it almost imperative upon him to keep near home."
George Bickerdike had been a hostler in the English village of Bradford, in the county of York. Seeking to better
his condition he came to America and located out from Philips Ferry and north of present Bethel church in the 1820s.
Landing at the wilderness ferry after a trip from New Orleans up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, he was cheered
by the sparkle in the eye of the ferryman's daughter, Ann Philips.
On May 22, 1832, young George Bickerdike and Ann Philips were married. Thomas Philips, uncle of the bride, licensed
to marry couples by virtue of being a deacon in the church, performed the ceremony. Immediately the couple took
up their abode in the "cabin in the wildwood," which Bickerdike had built in the late 1820s.
The Burlends, befriended by Bickerdike upon their arrival in the new land, never forgot the kindness of their countryman.
After they had become settled on their own estate, east of present Bethel, in a cabin of their own, they prepared
a great feast to which they invited Neighbor Bickerdike, intending thereby to express their appreciation of his
gracious kindness. We here quote again from Mrs. Burlend's narrative:
"Great numbers of quails frequented our homestead (two miles east of Bethel, in Section 6, Detroit township)
to feed on our small stock of Indian corn; we caught several of them with snares, which were excellent eating.
My husband also shot a few rabbits, of which there are vast numbers in America. We likewise saw several deer, but
as we had no rifle, we could not kill any. We observed several kinds of birds, which we had not before seen, one
in particular, which we took to be a species of turkey, engaged our attention; my husband tried several times to
kill one without effect. One Saturday, however, he was successful, and brought home his game with as much apparent
consciousness of triumph, as if he had slain some champion hydra of the forest.
"The following day we expected Mr. B., who by this time had received his money, to dine with us. (Note: This
was in the spring of 1832, before Mr. Bickerdike's marriage to Ann Philips.) We accordingly dressed our bird and
congratulated ourselves with the idea of having our countryman dine with us on a fine boiled turkey.
"Sunday morning arrived, and in due time our turkey was in the pot boiling for dinner. Mr. B. came; we told
him how happy we were on account of the treat we were going to give him. He was surprised at our story, as those
birds are difficult to obtain with a common fowling piece, and desired to see the feet and head. But the moment
he saw them, he exclaimed ‘it's a buzzard,' a bird which, we subsequently learnt, gormandizes any kind of filth
or carrion and consequently is not fit to be eaten.
"We were sorely disappointed; our turkey was hoisted into the yard, and we were obliged to be contented with
a little bacon, and a coarse Indian corn pudding, for which our stomachs were not altogether unprepared, although
recently in anticipation of more sumptuous fare."
So run the simple annals of our pioneers telling many a tragic story of disappointment and heartache.
George Bickerdike was destined to an early grave in the wilderness that he helped to conquer. On September 24,
1838, he died of typhus fever in the cabin to which he had taken his bride. Mrs. Burlend thus tells in her book
of her countryman's death:
"Mr. B. got married about four months after our arrival (it was really six and a half months after); being
an industrious and frugal man, his affairs kept continually improving; he put out, as loans, several hundred dollars,
for which he received good interest; his cattle also, was numerous, from which he obtained a good livelihood, by
keeping under the plough as much land as grew them provender for winter.
"He lived, however, only a few years; I shall never forget, poor man, the last time he was at our house. I
was rather unwell; after seeing me, he went round our farm with my husband, and then called in again to bid me
good evening, saying he hoped I should be better when he came again; but ‘how frail at best is dying man'; that
very night he began in the typhus fever, which terminated his earthly existence in a few days; he died childless
and without will."
Ann (Philips) Bickerdike, widow of the pioneer, continued to reside in the cabin to which she had come as a bride.
With her in this abode dwelt her young nephew, Alfred Andrew Elledge, son of the pioneer Baptist preacher, Jesse
Elledge, who married Ann's oldest sister, Elizabeth Philips. Alfred Andrew was a grandson of Charity Boone, the
eldest daughter of Daniel Boone's brother Edward. Alfred Andrew later married Amanda French Elledge, widow of Boone
Elledge's son, Alexander. One of Alfred Andrew's daughter, Mary Elledge, married Leander Vail and became the mother
of Celia Vail, widow of Dr. George B. Carey of Perry.
On the farm north of Bethel, the Widow Bickerdike (Ann Philips) performed all the arduous labors of a pioneer existence.
Assisted by her nephew, she farmed the land about the cabin, handling the ox-team ploy with skill and binding wheat
behind the cradler with the fastest binders of her time. Old records at the court house, filed among the papers
of her estate, show that in the year 1839, following the death of her husband, she sold 200 pounds of beef for
$6, 173 pounds of bacon at the same price of 3 cents a pound, quantities of butter at 8 cents a pound, tallow at
6 cents, and linsey, which she made on her own loom, at 50 cents a yard. She hired Nathan Philips to clear some
pasture land at 50 cents a day and by her industry raised the money to pay her deceased husband's obligation to
John Dimmitt and other trustees of the Bethel meeting house in the sum of $18, a large sum of money in those dark
days when the sound of the auctioneer's hammer, selling property for debt, was heard throughout the land.
When George Bickerdike died, Mrs. Burlend, being in regular correspondence with two of her children whom she had
left in England, sent them an account of his death and wished them to name it to his brother, John Bickerdike,
in the town of Thorner in the county of York. This being done, John Bickerdike, who had a large family in England
and was anxious to better his condition, took it into his head to visit the widow of his deceased brother in America.
Accordingly he left his family to take care of his home and in company with another wishful to emigrate, sailed
for New Orleans early in the year 1842. Mrs. Burlend tells of the arrival of this second Bickerdike:
"Neither we, nor Mr. B.'s widow, were aware of his coming; well do I remember the first appearance of these
two Yorkshiremen, who had agreed to introduce themselves as strangers. Little did we think, when we saw them rambling
in our farm like two incurious travelers, that they were objects of such interest to us as they proved to be; self
and husband were in the fields when they found us. I fancied I perceived a likeness of Mr. B., in one of them,
and challenged him as his brother; I was right: silence confirmed the conjecture, and we immediately invited them
into the house, and treated them with good Old English hospitality, eagerly devouring all the tidings we could
elicit from them."
Mr. Bickerdike sought from his deceased brother's widow a share of the estate to which himself and two sisters
in England were entitled and finding that his share be all in land he decided to return to England for his wife
and family to occupy it, which he did, being accompanied back to England by Mrs. Burlend, who thus, for a few months
in the summer of 1842, reveled once more in the atmosphere of her native country.
John Bickerdike, returning to America, settled his family in the Bethel country, where descendants of this Bickerdike
are still resident. John Bickerdike, in England, had married Hannah Dalby, a sister of Thomas Dalby, pioneer in
the Blue Creek country of Pike county. Their children included James, John, Jr., William, Elizabeth (who married
William Burlend, son of Rebecca, whose narrative has been so often quoted), Mary (who married Walker G. Sleight),
Richard, Charles W., Robert and George Bickerdike, the last of whom fell at the battle of Holly Spring in the Civil
War, December 30, 1862.
Records show that Richard Wade, William Turnbull and John Dimmitt were the referees who on August 15, 1842 allotted
the lands of George Bickerdike in a division of his estate between the widow and the brother and sisters. In this
allotment, Ann Bickerdike retained the home tract and a total of 147 ½ acres in Section 35, Griggsville
township. Here she continued to live and here, in the cabin to which George Bickerdike had brought her as a bride,
she died on March 22, 1844.
John Dimmitt, David Watson and Hiram Dean were appraisers of Ann's estate. Records show that Jesse G. Crawford
was allowed $10 for making her coffin. Notice of settlement of her estate was published by J. M. Lucas in "The
Illinoisan," a weekly newspaper published at Jacksonville. A sale of her property was held at the farm north
of Bethel on April 25, 1844, with D. F. Coffey as crier and E. D. Sweet as clerk.
Bidders at the sale included Jesse Elledge, John Bickerdike, Zephaniah Hornback, Joseph Elledge, Calvin Greenleaf,
Richard Wade, Alfred Elledge, Algernon Piercy, William Wells, H. Powell, Thomas Philips, Andrew Philips, E. May,
Martin Anthony, Nathan Philips, Thomas Kincaid, Anderson Kinman, C. F. Gibbs and D. F. Coffey.
John Bickerdike, brother of pioneer George, died March 4, 1867. His two sisters in England, for whom he acted with
power of attorney in the States, had deemed to him their interests in the Pike county property for a consideration
of $50 each, these conveyances being signed, sealed and delivered in the presence of Albert Davy, Consul of the
United States of America, at the Consulate in the Borough of Leeds. The two sisters, both of whom died in England,
were Bessy, wife of George Smith of Woodlesford, and Dinah, wife of Benjamin Bottoms of Poole, both being residents
of the county of York.
Celia Philips, sister of Ann and daughter of Nimrod, married Robert Hannah and located in Sullivan county, Indiana,
where she died and is buried. She last appears in the Pike county records in 1838, when she and her husband deeded
their interests in the Philips land to her brother, Andrew.
Andrew Philips, successor to his father at the famous Philips Ferry, died October 4, 1864, aged 63 years, five
months and one day. He is buried in Bethel cemetery, besides his daughter, Cenia.