CLOSELY INTERWOVEN with the story of the Boones is that of the Scholls, whose names dot the early records of Pike
county. Pike county was in its first year when the first Scholl settled within its borders. That was early in 1822.
A little later, in 1825, in a huge Kentucky covered wagon that was the marvel of its day, came another Scholl,
the man Abraham, with his wife, Tabitha Noe, and 13 of his 18 children and two families of his freed slaves. With
the Scholls came the first of the Pike county Wilsons and the family of Marshall Key, a son-in-law of Abraham Scholl
and a kinsman of the author of the Star Spangled Banner.
Crossing the Illinois river at the early Philips' Ferry, operated by kinsmen of the Boones, Scholls and Elledges,
they drove westward along the old Atlas Trail to the knoll on which, years later, arose the town of Griggsville;
thence north one and one-half miles to a 160-acre claim that Abraham had taken up from the government and which
became the old Scholl homestead. Scholl had been in this part of the Illinois country on a prospecting trip as
early as 1816, two years before Illinois became a state, and in the early 1820s he had selected and staked out
the 160 acres on which he later settled.
Returning to Kentucky, he told there of the wonderful claim he had staked out in the far country of the Illinois;
to the southwest of his claim, he said, there extended a vast uninhabited prairie, covered with tall prairie grass,
that would never be fenced and would always afford him all the open range he wanted. Abraham's descendant, John
Wilson of Baylis, 71 years old, recalls that this great prairie (now known as Griggsville Prairie), which his great
grandfather Scholl regarded as waste land that would never be fit for anything but grazing, was the first land
in this region to sell for $100 an acre.
Early Pike county, outside the Atlas community, was largely settled by families from Kentucky, most of whom had
come originally from Virginia or North Carolina, and, occasionally, from Pennsylvania. Family after family followed
the same migratory trail, out of Virginia and across North Carolina ( sometimes halting there for a time), then
into Kentucky with the Boones, and later out of Kentucky and westward to this region between the two great rivers,
or sometimes still farther west to the early settlement of Missouri, and then at a later date back to the Pike
county (Illinois) side of the river.
The story of these early Pike county families, beginning, as it does, in the dark and bloody uprisings of the Kentucky,
Virginia and Carolina borders, necessitates the recital of much of the pioneer history of those sections in order
to give to our earliest settlers the background from which they sprung and in the light of which they should be
judged. Out of the trials and tribulations of those Indian-harassed frontiers of the East and South, came the first
families to this region, inured to every hardship, schooled in the ways of the wilderness, in their souls the iron
of an indomitable resolution, planting here between the two rivers a spirit of independence and self-reliance that
wrote a glorious chapter in the history of the West.
In the summer of 1779, on Boone's Trace, known as the Wilderness Road, through Cumberland Gap, might have been
seen a long pack train wending its tedious way into the western Virginia county of Kentucky. Out of the Shenandoah
Valley and from the Forks of the Yadkin in North Carolina came these adventurers, seeking new homes in the trans-Appalachian
region that had been opened by Boone and Harrod and others of those early explorers. At the head of this pack train
was Daniel Boone, bringing his family once more from the banks of the Yadkin to his fort at Boonesborough on the
Kentucky river.
It will be remember that Boone, captured by the Shawnees in February, 1778, remained so long in captivity at Detroit
and Chillicothe (early Indian village in the Ohio country) that his family, his wife Rebecca and his children (excepting
the second daughter Jemima who had married Flanders Callaway), believing him dead, had deserted Boonesborough and
returned to her father's cabin on the Yadkin, where lived Rebecca's people. Boone, escaping his Indian captors
in June, 1778, and reaching his fort in time to warn its garrison against Indian attack and defend it against the
siege that followed, then, after the raising of the siege, in the fall of 1778, returned to the Yadkin where he
was greeted by his family as one returned from the dead.
Thus, in the early summer of 1779, we find Boone once more upon the Wilderness Road, his family with him, enroute
to his fort at Boonesborough. On this, his last trip out, we find him leading a large party from the older settlements
into the new land. Among them are some in whom we are deeply interested.
With Boone on this trip out to Kentucky was John Lincoln's son Abraham, who had come out of Rockingham county (then
in the very heart of the wilderness), in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and was going out with Boone to prospect
for a new location for the Lincolns in the land of Kentucky, the fame of which had by now spread through the older
settlements. The Boones and Lincolns were already friends of long standing, resulting from earlier association
of the two families in Berks county, Pennsylvania, and already the families of Lincoln and Boone had intermarried.
Abraham Lincoln at this time was the father of three sons, one of whom, Thomas, had been born in the preceding
year (1778). Thomas it was who was destined to become the father of another Abraham who, on October 1, 1858, in
the courthouse square in Pittsfield, thrilled one of the greatest political audiences ever assembled in the county
of Pike. In Kentucky, we find Abraham Lincoln entering 500 acres of land, according to Daniel Boone's survey notes,
Boone being deputy surveyor of Fayette county, under Colonel Thomas Marshall, father of Chief Justice Marshall.
In 1781 or 1782, according to President Lincoln's own statement, his grandfather Abraham took his family out to
Kentucky. There he built a cabin near Bear Grass Fort (site of present Louisville), which had been founded by General
George Rogers Clark in 1778, Clark utilizing a tiny island in the Ohio river at that point as a base for his brilliant
military maneuvers in his winning of the great Northwest.
There, in 1784, while working in his field at some distance from his cabin, the Abraham Lincoln whom we have just
met on the Wilderness Road with Daniel Boone was killed by Indians. In the field with him when he was killed was
his young son Thomas, then a lad of six. Not far away were Thomas's older brothers, Mordecai and Josiah. Mordecai,
running to the cabin, grabbed a rifle and pointing it through a porthole cut in the log walls, aimed at a shining
brass medal on the breast of the Indian who had shot his father and had seized Thomas and was making off with him
into the woods, killing the savage at the first fire.
Young Thomas, thus freed from the clutches of his father's slayer, flew to the outstretched arms of his mother
waiting at the cabin door. Josiah ran to the fort to give the alarm, and a body of settlers responding brought
in the body of Abraham Lincoln and his slain slayer. Mordecai Lincoln is said to have then sworn vengeance against
Indians and chroniclers relate that many a redskin bit the Kentucky dust in payment for his father's death. Later
we shall find an early comer to Pike county courting a daughter of this house of Lincoln but later marrying a daughter
of the house of Scholl.
With Daniel Boone and Abraham Lincoln on this trip out to Kentucky in 1779 came another family destined to become
prominent in the early history of Pike county, namely, the family of William and Leah (Morgan) Scholl, who also,
along with Lincoln, had come out of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and joined Daniel Boone's party. The Schools
and Lincolns at this time were friends of long standing and some Scholl descendants think it is probable that the
two families were related. It is certain that the Scholls and Boones were related at this time, both families having
intermarried with the Morgan family of Revolutionary renown. A. C. Barrow (of Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, and Auburn,
Alabama), a great grandson of Abraham Scholl, says he has long believed that his great grandfather was named for
this Abraham Lincoln who came to Kentucky in the same pack-train with the Scholls in 1779.
Abraham Scholl, a Whig in politics, in his old age was a great admirer of young Abe Lincoln, a struggling western
lawyer and grandson of the Abe Lincoln who had helped him, Abe Scholl, then 15 years old, catch his horse one night
on Boone's Trace in 1779, when the horses of the pack train were stampeded in a sudden night attack by Indians.
Young Abe Lincoln often came to Pittsfield in the late 1830s and the 1840s to practice in the Pike county courts,
and Abraham Scholl made it a point to come to the county-seat when Abe Lincoln was in town.
The late William Carter Dickson, who was born on the north side of the Pittsfield public square in 1843, remembered
as a small boy in his father's store hearing Abraham Scholl, then an old man, recount many a thrilling tale of
the wild Kentucky border, tales that he, Dickson, remembered in his own old age as vividly as if they had been
recounted the day before. One of the stories he remembered well was that told by Scholl of the killing of Abraham
Lincoln by Indians in 1784 and of the shining trinket on the Indian killer's chest at which Abraham's son aimed
and fired, thereby saving Thomas Lincoln, father of the war President, from Indian captivity. Scholl's story of
the Lincoln tragedy, as remembered by Dickson, was in all major particulars the same as related by Isaac N. Arnold,
once president of the Chicago Historical Society and a member of Congress during the Civil War, in his "Life
of Abraham Lincoln (1885)."
Mr. Dickson remembered having heard his father, James Dickson, early Pittsfield tailor, tell of having frequently
seen young Abe and old Abe (Lincoln and Scholl) sitting on the curb in front of his place of business on the north
side of the square, their feet in the gutter, swapping stories of which both seemed to have an inexhaustible supply.
This would be during court days when everybody from round about came to town to trade horses, swap houn' dogs and
settle grudges by fighting it out with bare knuckles in the public square. Lincoln is known to have practiced in
both the first and second Pittsfield court houses, and sometimes his future great opponent, Douglas, came also
to practice in the local courts.
One of Abraham Scholl's favorite stories of his young friend Lincoln had to do with the Congressional campaign
of 1846 when Lincoln was running against the famous circuit-riding Methodist evangelist, Peter Cartwright. As Scholl
told the story (said to be a true one) Cartwright was holding a religious meeting at some backwoods school house
in the district, and Lincoln, his opponent in the race for Congress, dropped in for the service. In the course
of the meeting Cartwright called on all who wanted to go to Heaven to rise. All stood up but Lincoln. Cartwright,
thinking he now had his opponent in a hole, then called on all who wanted to go to Hell to rise. Still Lincoln
remained seated. "And where, may I ask, does my friend, Mr. Lincoln, want to go?" queried the evangelist.
"To Congress," replied Honest Abe. And to Congress he went, defeating Cartwright in the election in August
that year.
With William and Leah (Morgan) Scholl, coming out to Kentucky with Boone in 1779, came eight of the ten (or eleven)
children who had been born to them, namely:
Peter Scholl, who later married Mary Boone, daughter of Edward (Neddie) Boone, brother of Daniel, two of whose
children settled and died in Pike county; Isaac Scholl, who married Charity Elledge and settled in Williams county,
Tennessee, she being a sister of Francis Elledge and an aunt of the noted Boone Elledge, early settler at Griggsville;
Joseph Scholl, who married Levina, daughter of Daniel Boone, and settled in Clark county, Kentucky, and who was
with the Boones and his brothers, Peter and Abraham, in the battle of the Blue Licks; John Scholl, who married
Nancy Norris, a relative of the wife of Nimrod Phillips of the early Phillips' Ferry; Sarah (Sally) Scholl, who
married Samuel Shortridge and settled in Indiana; Elizabeth Scholl, who married Arnold Custer, a relative of the
noted General Custer of the Custer massacre; Rachel Scholl, who married David Denton who, in 1803 or 1804, with
Joseph Scholl, Jesse Bryan Boone and one Van Bibber came out to St. Charles county in Missouri Territory to visit
the Daniel Boones and to see the country; and Abraham Scholl, who married, first, Nellie Humble (or Umble), and
second, December 15, 1803, Tabitha Noe, and who, with his second wife, and 12 children of the second family and
one of the first, settled in Pike county in 1825.
Abraham Scholl at the time of his pilgrimage with Boone into Kentucky was a lad of 15, his birth having occurred
in Augusta county, in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, in 1764. The year of his birth is established by a Kentucky
court document dated October 10, 1805, of record in the office of the county clerk in Winchester, county seat of
Clark county, Kentucky, this being a deposition in which Abraham Scholl stated he was then 41 years old.
Camping one night on the Wilderness Road on the journey out to Kentucky, the horses of the party were stampeded
by the Indians, and Abraham often told of the weary miles he traveled before he again recovered his pack horse.
This doubtless was the time when Abraham Lincoln helped him catch his horse on Boone's Trace. The stampede of the
pack horses on this occasion was just one of the many adventures upon the trace when, as Abraham related, it was
necessary to maintain a constant vigil against Indian surprise.
It is probable that with Daniel ‘s younger brother, Edward (Neddie) Boone, taking his family out to Daniel's fort
and going to his own death at Indian hands in Kentucky. Edward had married Martha Bryan, a sister of Daniel's wife,
Rebecca, on the Yadkin river, where Martha's and Rebecca's family had early settled. On one of Edward's pack horses
carrying his family and household goods, slung in a cradle basket made of woven hickory withes, rode the baby of
the family, Charity Boone, later to marry Francis Elledge and implant the far-flung Elledge family here in the
West. Also in the pack train rode Charity's elder sister, Mary, then a girl of 15, who later married Peter Scholl,
then a youth of 25. It was their son, Edward Boone Scholl, who one December day in 1833, garbed in the striking
Colonial costume of the days of the earlier Adamses, walked into the log post office in the newly-founded town
of Pittsfield and requested Maerel E. Rattan, first postmaster, tavern keeper and a justice of the peace, to record
for him a plat of the town of Booneville which he was founding on land owned by him, this being the site of the
present town of Perry in north Pike county.
Abraham Scholl is known to have related that it was on the trip out to Kentucky with Boone in 1779 that his eldest
brother, Peter, became acquainted with Neddie Boone's eldest daughter, Mary, to whom he was married some two or
three years later, when she was about 18 and he about ten years older.
Two distinct branches of the Scholl family are therefore identified with the early history of Pike county, the
descendants of Peter; as well as the family of Abraham, having played a large part in the development of this region.
The first Pike county Scholl was Matilda, a daughter of Peter Scholl and Mary Boone, and a granddaughter of Neddie
Boone. She, the wife of Joseph Jackson, came with her husband and children in the pack train of the Zachariah (Boone)
Allens early in 1822, they (the Jacksons) making permanent settlement in what is now Pleasant Vale township, where
later one of their children, another Matilda, married a descendant of Squire Boone, another brother of Daniel.