ONE DAY IN 1822, Captain Leonard Ross, famous sheriff of early days, was upon the Fort Edwards trail, tracking
a horse thief who had escaped from Coles' Grove and headed towards Fort Edwards, present site of Warsaw, in Hancock
county. With him were his younger brother, William Ross, later a colonel of Illinois militia and an aide to the
commanding general in the Black Hawk war; John Wood, later a state legislator, lieutenant governor and governor
of the state; and Israel Farr, an early Pike county constable.
Far up on the famous trail, John Wood paused and, inviting his comrades to follow him, told them he would show
them the spot where some day he would build a city. They followed Wood for some distance off the main trail toward
the Mississippi river and there on a point of vantage Wood stopped and told his companions to look. The little
group stood overlooking the site where, more than a year before, Wood had marked out the location of his future
home, which likewise became the site of modern Quincy.
Says an early historian, commenting upon this scene: "the view presented to the trio of sturdy frontiersmen
(other accounts make it certain there were four in the party) was a magnificent one. The hand of the white man
had never touched the soil, or disturbed the beautiful decorations of nature. Below them swept the Father of Waters
yet unburdened by steam navigation. Mr. Wood tried to show his companions the advantages the location had, but
Mr. Ross was so thoroughly interested in building up his own town of Atlas and so sanguine of its future greatness
that the beautiful and excellent location selected by Mr. Wood was completely overshadowed by that enjoyed by his
village. Mr. William Ross congratulated his young friend and hoped he would make of his town a success, but he
despaired of it ever amounting to much for, as he remarked to the governor, ‘It's too near Atlas!'
The founding fathers of Atlas and Quincy, as they looked out upon this scene, were yet young men. Ross was 30,
Wood 23. Ross, an ensign in the War of 1812, already had a military record that made him a heroic figure in the
early community. In the wild tumult of Sackett's Harbor, he had been with his brother, Captain Leonard, who headed
a detachment of about 100 men, a third of whom were either killed or wounded in the conflict; the Ross detachment,
with 400 other Americans, driving back 1,300 British in that memorable engagement. Ross and Wood, a few years later,
were to vie with each other as counselors of Lincoln. Fame had already claimed these two young men for her own
as they looked out that day upon the site of Wood's future city.
We have seen the driving of the stake in the new town of Quincy, in the presence of three men who, with Wood, comprised
the then voting population of the new town. This was in the first week of April, 1825. By the end of 1825 the new
town had a population of 16, including men, women and children.
The next step in organization of the newly designated county of Adams was the election of county commissioners
and other county officers. This election was held, according to law, on the second day of July, 1825, at Willard
Keyes' house. Levi Wells, Peter Journey and Keyes, all noted names in early Pike county history, were elected commissioners.
Wells resided at the time near where the town of Payson now stands, and Journey on what is now known as Mill Creek.
Thus with the election of the first Adams county commissioners, the new county passed from the government of Pike
and became a self-sustaining county, and, coincidently, the new town of Quincy passed from the political jurisdiction
of Atlas.
In the same month, the new commissioners held their first meeting at Keyes' house and appointed as clerk of the
court Henry H. Snow, the noted "Deacon" Snow of early Atlas. Snow arrived in Quincy the day before the
election, having been previously appointed clerk of the circuit court by Judge John York Sawyer. The county commissioners'
court on the ninth day of November, 1825, made the following orders:
"Ordered, that the clerk advertised a sale of lots in the town of Quincy, in the Edwardsville Spectator, and
a paper in St. Louis, to take place on the 13th day of December next."
"Ordered that Henry H. Snow be employed to survey the town of Quincy, and to draw plats thereof, at the price
of one dollar per day; he to be furnished with necessary hands to carry chain, drive stakes, etc., and to employ
such hands on behalf of the county at a price not exceeding seventy cents per day. The county to furnish the necessary
stakes and posts."
In pursuance of these orders, during the same week, the survey was made, and on Tuesday, December 13, about one
month after the order for advertisement, a sale was made by the county commissioners of 51 lots in Quincy, the
principal purchasers being the commissioners themselves, the sheriff and four or five residents of the county.
By Snow's survey, John Wood's cabin was thrown outside the town boundary, being south of that boundary, so that
at the time of the legal survey of the town, the only house within the actual town limits was the cabin of Keyes,
a structure of the most primitive order, and the only inhabitant of the town was Willard Keyes. No other houses
were erected within the town limits until after the sale of lots alluded to above.
The location of the new county seat being thus settled, and the town laid out, the title of the land must be secured.
In order to effect this, Snow borrowed money from Russell Farnham of St. Louis, giving his note, with David E.
Kyler for security. This money was afterward paid by the county. Snow deposited the money in the Land Office at
Edwardsville, to secure the entry of the land whenever it should be brought into market. The land was not purchased
from the U. S. Government until April 26, 1830, when it was sold to George Frazier, Philip W. Martin and Daniel
Stone, then county commissioners, in trust for the county of Adams.
In the first settlement of this far in the wilderness, remote as it was from the conveniences of older neighborhoods,
even though effected by a civilized people, many things necessarily bore a primitive form. Without ready access
to market or mill, the first settlers of Quincy built their houses without nails, window glass, sawed lumber, bricks
or mortar; the principal utensils of labor being the axe and auger.
The habits of the pioneers developed along lines peculiar to the settlers in a wilderness country. An early writer
remarks, for instance, that Wood and Keyes had some dishes which they used for their simple meals, and on every
Sunday morning they would wash these, and clean up their cabin, ready for the reception of visitors, if, perchance,
any should stray that way, which seldom happened in those early years.
In a historical introduction to the first directory for the city of Quincy, published in 1848, occurs the following
reference:
"Owing to the scarcity of hands when Wood and Rose (John Wood and Jeremiah Rose) first farmed here (on the
site of Quincy), they cultivated a piece of land, containing 30 acres in corn, and without fence; and at that time,
there being no blacksmith here, they were obliged to go to Dutton (David Dutton) in Pike county, 30 miles, to get
their ploughs sharpened. One of them would swing a ploughshare on each side of an Indian pony, and pile on such
other articles of iron as he wished repaired; then lay in his stock of provisions, mount and set out."
This reference of the early Quincy historian fits in with the stories of pioneers yet living in Pike county a half-
century ago (about 1885) who told of John Wood astride his famous Indian pony, Keokuk, threading the early Fort
Edwards trail, singing to the accompaniment of his jangling irons.
The early settlers in Quincy had to go by way of the Fort Edwards trail to Atlas, 40 miles, for their meal which
they obtained at William Ross's early band mill. Ross's first mill, erected soon after his arrival on the site
of present Atlas, would grind, with two horses, four or five bushels a day, but he soon built a larger mill which,
with four good horses, would grind from 25 to 30 bushels a day. Settlers from even 25 miles north of Quincy were
customers of Ross's mill.
Mail for the Quincy settlers, when it came at all, came by way of Atlas from Carrollton, on the far side of the
Illinois river and 40 miles distant from Atlas; the latter settlement being then the only post town west of the
river. Sometimes weeks slipped into months and there was no mail. When the Illinois river was high and full of
floating ice, It was sometimes impossible to make the trip from Atlas to Carrollton and return.
One of the most thrilling adventures of pioneer days in Pike county was told by Col. Benjamin Barney, an 1826 settler
at Atlas, who once, after six weeks without mail, faced the winter wilderness, crossed the Illinois river on cakes
of floating ice, and, after delivering the Atlas mail at Carrollton, was pursued by hungry wolves through a raging
winter storm. Returning with the precious mail for the western settlements, he dearly earned the $10 reward (a
munificent sum in those days) offered by Capt. Ross, the Atlas postmaster, to anyone who would get the mail.
Grimshaw, early Pike historian, speaking of pioneer mails, said: "In the early day no iron horse snorted and
raced over our prairies. The steamer once perhaps in several weeks dragged itself along. Twelve days was a short
time for a trip from New York here, and that mostly by stage. Our mails arrived once a week, and a letter cost
us our ‘last quarter.' News from Europe a month old was fresh. No troublesome quotations of daily markets puzzled
or enlightened us." Grimshaw, however, was speaking of an even later period, he being a settler at Atlas in
1833.
In early times, the Quincy settlers depended upon Atlas for their iron work and the repair and sharpening of their
primitive tools. First, they stopped at Dutton's, then regarded as in the Atlas settlement. Later, after 1826,
Benjamin Barney, at Atlas, was the county blacksmith. At his early forge was made the first iron plow manufactured
within the limits of present Pike county. John P. Ottwell, on Ottwell's Branch near Bee Creek, in what is now Pearl
township, was the first blacksmith within the present limits of Pike, locating there in 1821. Settlers came to
his shop from half a dozen modern counties, and, camping on the bank of the stream, would hunt and fish, sometimes
for several days, while their work was being done.
Indians were more numerous at the early Quincy settlement than they were at Atlas, although the wigwams of the
Sauk and Fox stood for many years along the banks of the Sny in the early years of settlement, the tribes there
being visited occasionally by both the stately and noble-appearing Keokuk and the small one-eyed Black Hawk. Frequently
the whites at early Atlas, peering from sheltering thickets, beheld the painted tribesmen in their war dances on
the Sny. Once, in 1824, Keokuk, with 500 warriors, stopped overnight at the Indian village near Atlas, enroute
to battle a hostile tribe below St. Louis. There, on the bank of the Sny, they had their war dance. Keokuk had
sent a scout in advance with an offering of peace to the settlers at Atlas.
As late as 1832, when the Black Hawk war broke out, the Indians, principally of the Sauk and Fox tribes, were very
numerous at Quincy; the shores of the river being covered with their wigwams a long distance both above and below
the town, according to Dr. Ware, an early Quincy historian. They traded with the whites, both in town and in the
surrounding country. As they came in from their hunting excursions, they brought in feathers, dressed deerskins,
moccasins, beeswax, honey, maple sugar, grass floor mats, venison hams, muskrat and coon skins.
In 1828, according to Ware, a tea was in general use at Quincy, as it was at Atlas, made of the bark and roots
of sassafras. The coffee used was of the nut of the Kentucky coffee tree which grew in the neighboring forests.
Maple sugar was worth 25c a pound. Honey, which was abundant and sold by the barrel, would bring 37 1/2c a gallon;
beeswax was worth 25 to 30c a pound. So ready was the sale of this article and coon skins that it was said "coon
skins were currency and beeswax, land office money." The usual price of a bee tree was one dollar, as it stood
in the forest. The person who first saw it would mark his name or initials on it, and it was then regarded as his
property. These were often exchanged in trade for horses, or other stock or property. Grimshaw relates that "it
was ‘common law' that a bee tree even in your pasture lot was lawful plunder."
Taxes in early Pike county were sometimes paid in beeswax or peltries. James M. Seeley, Pike's "honest, easy
sheriff," often took such wares in payment of taxes and sometimes, when the settler was extremely "hard
up," he paid the taxes out of his own pocket and trusted the man until he "had something come in."
Both honey and beeswax found a ready market at St. Louis and stores of the same were to be found on most of the
early rafts and flatboats poled down the river. One group of Pike settlers, residing in that part now embraced
in Schuyler county, as early as 1823 sent in one shipment of 27 barrels of strained honey to St. Louis.
The rafting of logs, staves and hoop material down the river was another common enterprise which netted the settlers
some much-prized "store money." Of these days, Grimshaw wrote: "A counterfeit United States bill
was almost legal tender. Hoop-poles, staves and cordwood were equal at a later day to gold. Store pay was better
than any of the foregoing, but often led to heavy mortgages and secret bills of sale."
Meanwhile, the country around Atlas was getting too crowded for some of the early settlers. They needed more elbow
room. Some headed for the newer settlement to the north, in the new county of Adams. Some did not go as far as
Quincy. A number settled around the early Perrigo cabin, on Fall creek, near modern Marblehead. Justus J. Perrigo
was the first settler there. In 1824, we find Amos Bancroft, an early Pike commissioner, Daniel Moore, one of the
commissioners who located the Pike seat of justice at Atlas in 1823, and Rial Crandall building the first saw mill
on Fall Creek. Moore had formerly resided on what was known as Apple Creek Road, between Atlas and the Illinois
river, being the early supervisor of that road. Bancroft, Moore and Crandall were all, as early as 1820, living
in what later became Pike county, being signers in December, 1820, of the petition to the legislature for a new
county. Other early Pike countians at Fall creek were Zepheniah Ames, Amos Beebe and Ebenezer Harkness. Marblehead,
formerly known as Milville, was laid out in 1835 by Michael Mast, John Coffman and Stephen Thomas.
Rufus Brown, who kept the tavern at Atlas, sat as a Pike county commissioner in the log court house at Atlas for
the last time on December 8, 1825, moving immediately thereafter to Quincy, where he built a log tavern on the
south side of what is now Washington Square Park, the site of his tavern being later that of the Quincy House.
John and Jeremiah Ross, brothers of the Atlas founders, who came to Atlas in 1821, a year after the founders, also
moved to John Wood's new town.
In spite of the exodus of several of its citizens, Atlas continued for a number of years as the metropolis of western
Illinois. Quincy did not become a real threat for several years. Meanwhile, Quincy settlers were importing bacon
and flour and other goods from or through Atlas. Atlas in those days was the most flourishing trading post in western
Illinois, between St. Louis and Fever River (Galena). Says Grimshaw:
"This business of the county prior to 1833 was all carried on at Atlas; there were two general stores. Warburton
& Co. of St. Louis, with whom Col. Ross was a partner, had a large brick store and did an extensive business,
all on credit or barter. Mr. Francis Webster, who died after residing some years in St. Louis, also had a general
store. Dexter Wheelock kept a tavern, snug quarters, and also had liquors for sale and groceries for family use."
The brick house still standing at the crossroads in Atlas and now occupied by the W. J. Hillman family was built
in 1823 and used originally by Healthenstein & Gore as a trading post between St. Louis and Keokuk. Even earlier,
in 1821, brick was used in Atlas to fashion the walls of a dwelling, the beginning of what later developed into
the Col. Ross mansion that still stands on the bluffside overlooking Atlas. These early walls of brick were preceded
by the log walls of the first cabin. Capt. Leonard Ross's brick mansion and the brick house of Sheriff James M.
Seeley, near Atlas, also arose in an early day as monuments to the genius of the Atlas settlers.
Meanwhile, at Quincy, a store was opened. In 1826, Ashur Anderson arrived with a stock of goods from Maryland,
and opened a store in Rufus Brown's log tavern. The value of his goods was estimated at one thousand dollars, consisting
chiefly of groceries, shoes, domestics, calicoes and some coarse cloths. These were sold to the Indians for such
articles as circulated in the Indian trade; or on credit to the white inhabitants who as yet had little or no money.
This store, and the establishment of a grocery, or dram shop, in 1827, made the new town a trading point for the
interior.
In 1828 arrived Robert Tillson and Charles Holmes, who, in partnership, established themselves the same years as
merchants in a log cabin on the north side of the Quincy public square, which afterwards formed a part of the old
Land Office Hotel. In the succeeding year, 1829, the business of the new town did not increase much. Tillson &
Holmes erected a frame house for their accommodation on the southwest corner of the square; this was the first
frame house in the town, and at a later date was used as a postoffice building. Keyes and Ebenezer Harkness erected
a log building on the river bank in front of Keyes' cabin, near the foot of Vermont street, for a store; and they,
together with Mrs, Wesley Williams, carried on the store. Keyes this same year established a steam ferry across
the Mississippi, more or less untrustworthy but nevertheless the marvel of its day.
It was following the Black Hawk war and when Atlas lost the county seat to the new town of Pittsfield in 1833,
that Quincy finally achieved commercial supremacy over Atlas. Losing the seat of government, Atlas sat down by
the roadside and to the passerby today the quiet little village offers no outward evidence of those stirring days
when it was the center of county seat war and the cradle of those mighty impulses that made Illinois a free state
at a time when slavery and anti-slavery issues in the nation were trembling in the balance.
In Quincy, John Wood, carefree pioneer of early Pike county days, moved forward to higher planes. With great foresight,
he acquired tract after tract of land. Lorenzo Bull said of him" "He came here (to Quincy) without means
and yet within less than ten years he managed to purchase all that large body of land extending from the river
to 24th Street and from a half mile to more than a mile in width. Undoubtedly he bought most of it for even less
than the government price of $1.25 per acre, but it was his energy and foresight that led him to secure these valuable
tracts, which placed him as a landowner far beyond any other citizen in the state."
On May 1, 1903, at the seventy-eighth anniversary of the founding of Quincy by Wood, Mr. Bull, a personal friend
over a long period of years, thus spoke of the Pike county pioneer who became governor:
"The John Wood whom I am thinking of as I am talking to you is not the grave, dignified old gentleman whose
statue stands in the public square, but a very energetic, active young man about thirty years old, always on the
move, and who seemed to be everywhere, all over the town, all over his big farm, driving and pushing everything
about him through his own natural force and activity, always ready to lead and direct in any active work, and to
do his part in any undertaking in which he was engaged. He had a loud, strong voice, and a very hearty laugh, and
was generally known by these whenever he came into town. I once inquired of a man ‘Have you seen John Wood in town
this morning?' ‘No,' he said, ‘I have not seen him but he must be in town for I heard him whisper.'"
Wood soon outgrew his early log cabin of 1822 and moved into spacious mansions. In 1835 he built the stately edifice
which today houses the Quincy Historical Society and which stands on Twelfth Street near State, not far from its
original site. In 1865, Governor Wood built the stone and marble mansion which later became Chaddock College, and,
still later, the present St. Peter's School, near Twelfth and State.
Wood was one of the first aldermen and was the third mayor of the city he founded. Again, in the 1850s, he served
two terms as mayor. In 1832 he volunteered in the Black Hawk war, as a private in Capt. Flood's company. In 1852
he was elected to the state senate. He was nominated for lieutenant governor by the first Republican state convention
in Bloomington in May, 1856, of which convention his friend, William Ross, was vice president. Wood was elected
with Governor Bissell, whom he succeeded as governor upon Bissell's death on March 18, 1860.
Early in 1826, Wood married Ann Streeter and to them eight children were born. The wife died in 1863 and in 1865
Governor Wood married Mrs. Mary Holmes. In the Civil war, in 1864, Governor Wood raised the "One Hundred Day
Regiment," the 138th Illinois Infantry, and served as colonel through a period of hard service.
On January 14, 1861, Wood was succeeded as governor by the first Richard Yates, elected on the same ticket with
Abraham Lincoln for president. Wood, Yates and President-elect Lincoln all had their offices in the state house
at Springfield and were in frequent conference. The three were then conferring upon matters of the utmost moment
to the nation. Within a few weeks the Confederate guns were to roar upon Fort Sumpter. Out of these conferences
came the unqualified declaration of Yates in his inaugural address that the whole materiel of the state must be
employed to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Yates appointed Wood as one of a commission of five
from Illinois to meet at Washington, pursuant to Virginia's suggestion, to attempt an amicable settlement of the
issue between North and South.
John Wood, stouthearted pioneer of the 1820s, died on June 4, 1880, and is buried in the city he founded. He was
in his 82nd year. Numerous historic spots in Quincy are intimately associated with his name, and in his splendid
home built in 1835, partly by his own hands, and which now houses the Quincy Historical Society, are many treasurers
that were dear to him and his family.