MONTEZUMA WAS A WILD REGION, peopled only by roving red men, when the pioneering Boones erected their habitations
there in 1822. They were the first comers, the first permanent white settlers in that region. True, Ebenezer Franklin
had tarried there in 1819, but the following spring we find him pitching his tent and then erecting his permanent
log abode in the vicinity of present Atlas. There is, then, no record of a white settler abiding in present Detroit,
Montezuma, Pittsfield, Newburg and Hardin townships when the Boones came.
True to their family traditions, the Boones blazed the way for the white settlement of this wild and beautiful
section of the vast early-day county of Pike, out of which have since been erected 32 counties and six parts of
counties. Accommodations were remote and of the rudest sort. The nearest mill of any consequence was at Edwardsville,
in Madison county, 80 miles distant. It was seven years before the first horse-mill was built by Freeman Tucker
on the site of present Milton, on a lot later occupied by Ebenezer Franklin.
In the early years of the settlement, the nearest stores were at Atlas and Bridgeport, the latter opposite present
Bedford, on the Scott county (then Morgan county) side of the Illinois river. The only doctor in this part of the
county was Henry J. Ross at Ross's Settlement (now Atlas). The nearest post towns were at Ross's Settlement and
Carrollton, the latter in Greene county. Roads were merely trails or "traces." The first regularly laid
out road ran from Meacham's Ferry (present Montezuma) to Atlas. The famous Fort Clark road (from Ferguson's Ferry
near the mouth of the Illinois, to Fort Clark, site of Peoria), was another early trail through the Montezuma region.
Montezuma was a name at first applied to a large region, embracing several modern townships. The "land of
the Montezumas" or "Montezuma land" it was called, a name perhaps attributable to the Boone legend
of buried treasure in that region. The region was the traditional site of one of Daniel Boone's early camps. John
Shaw once related that "a number of relatives of Daniel Boone later settled on and near the site of one of
his camps in what is now Pike county, Illinois." Shaw probably knew of this early camp from the relations
of the great scout himself, as we have seen from the preceding narratives that Shaw often conversed with Boone,
whom he had come to know on the St. Charles (Mo.) Frontier in 1808.
Montezuma (the present township) was formerly a part of Franklin township, largest of the three original Pike county
sub-divisions, embracing, when erected in 1824, all of present Pike county east of the range line dividing Sections
4 and 5 west of the Fourth Principal meridian (excepting the southernmost tier of sections in Pearl, Spring Creek
and Pleasant Hill townships); also, all the territory north of present Pike and between the above range line and
the Illinois river to the base line (intersecting the Illinois river near Beardstown); and all of Illinois north
of the base line and west of the Fourth Principal Meridian to the Wisconsin line.
In 1876, F. M. Grimes, then editor of the Milton Beacon, speaking in Milton's centennial celebration that year,
had this to say of the changes that had then taken place in this once wild land of the Montezumas:
"One hundred years ago, the sound of the white man's axe had not been heard in our forests. The ringing of
the anvil, the rattle of the reaper, the hum of the thresher, and whistle of the engine would have been strange
music to the ear of the wild Indian, whose song and war-whoop were the only sounds indicative of human existence.
The soul-stirring music of the band, the melodious tones of the organ and the still sweeter voices of the choir,
would have been in strange contrast with the howl of the wolf or the scream of the panther as they roamed fearlessly
over the spot where we now stand. (A Boone descendant, Enoch W. Garrison, as we shall see, hunted these wild creatures
on this very spot.) The bark canoe and the majestic steamer; the rude wigwam and the stately mansion; the Indian
pony and the iron horse; the slow footman and the lightning telegraph but faintly illustrate the vast difference
between the savage of then and the civilized of today."
To the wild land thus so ably depicted by the Milton historian of 1876 had come the pioneering Boones-Zachariah
and Dinah Boone Allen and his daughter Polly; Lewis Allen and Jonathan Boone Allen and their families (a letter
from Jonathan Boone Allen's 73-year-old grandson in the state of Texas establishes the identity of Jonathan B.
Allen of the early days as the eldest son of Dinah Boone Allen and a grandson of Jonathan Boone, the brother of
Daniel); and Joseph Jackson and his family, the latter continuing on west to the Mississippi side of the county
and settling in what is now Pleasant Vale township, near modern New Canton, whither we shall follow them in a later
chapter. These Boone family embraced direct descendants of Jonathan and Edward Boone, the former an older and the
latter a younger brother of Daniel Boone. Both of these brother of Daniel had their names implanted in Pike county
history by their grandsons, namely, Jonathan Boone Allen, grandson of Jonathan Boone, and Edward Boone Scholl,
grandson of Edward (Neddie) Boone, whose colorful part in early Pike county history will be related in a chapter
devoted to the romantic Scholl family.
Montezuma had lost little of its original wildness when Sally Garrison, daughter of Dinah Boone and granddaughter
of Jonathan Boone, settled there, with her husband and children in October, 1826. This was two years before William
Kenney erected the first log cabin where Milton now stands; and nine years before the village of Milton was platted
by Freeman Tucker. Indians still roamed the neighborhood in large numbers; deer and wild turkeys were abundant.
At night, the river and creek bottoms were made dismal with the howling of many wolves.
Elijah Garrison, who had married Sally Allen in Kentucky, was a Christian minister. He was a militant exhorter,
a shouting exponent of the gospel. His first sermon in the new land was preached at the log house of David Mize,
in what is now Detroit township, in 1826. "The inhabitants were preeminently religious," says an early
writer; "shouting was very common and the ‘jerk' had not ceased to afflict the religious fanatic. Preaching
and prayer meetings were held at private houses until better accommodations could be had." Under the leadership
of the Garrisons, ministers of the Christian (prevailing) church, and of Sally Garrison's brother, Lewis Allen,
the Baptist, a church organization was effected prior to 1828.
In 1876, when F. M. Grimes of Milton was preparing his history of Montezuma township (heretofore mentioned) for
the centennial celebration held at Milton on July 4 that year, he received from Zachariah A. Garrison, grandson
of Dinah Boone, then residing in the state of Oregon, the following letter, descriptive of the Elijah Garrison
family's arrival in Pike county in 1826:
"Fifty years ago I with my father and his family crossed the Illinois river in a small hand ferry boat at
Meacham's Ferry, where Montezuma now stands. We went west four miles and settled in the timber, a pretty country
abounded with game of all kinds. Deer, turkey and bees were very plenty. The Indians were our most numerous neighbors,
being about twenty to one white man. In the winter of 1829 and 1830, the deep snow fell, which was four feet on
a level. (Note: The big snow fell in the winter of 1830-31.) The following summer I was tending the ferry for Solomon
Seevers at Montezuma and saw the first steamboat that ploughed the Illinois river. It was a small stern- wheeler.
When opposite the ferry the wheel rolled up so much grass that it could not turn, and the men had to cut it loose
and pole her through the grass. There was but one water-mill in the county and that was on Big Blue. It was a tub-wheel
and a very faithful one it was. When it got one grain cracked, it would jump upon another with a powerful vim and
crack it, too. (This was Garret Van Dusen's early mill.) The nearest store in the county was kept by Col. Ross
at Atlas. Women wore homespun cotton dresses, and deerskin moccasins. Men and boys dressed in buckskin from head
to foot, and on the head a coon or fox skin cap; ate hog and hominy, lived sociably and enjoyed each other's company
with true friendship."
Zachariah A. and Enoch W. Garrison, sons of Sally (Allen) Garrison, were typical Boones. The lure of far horizons
was in their blood; for them, the untrammeled life of camp and woods had an irresistible appeal. They were grandsons
of Dinah Boone, great grandsons of Jonathan Boone, great great grandsons of Squire and Sarah Boone, the parents
of Daniel.
Zachariah A. Garrison was born in Posey county, Indiana, on the banks of the Wabash, March 29, 1815, Posey county
being the southwestern county of Indiana, in the loop made by the junction of the Wabash with the Ohio, and just
across the rivers from Kentucky and Illinois. Zachariah and Dinah Boone Allen had dwelt nearby, on the Illinois
side of the Wabash, prior to their removal to Pike county, Illinois. Here, on the Illinois side of the river, Jonathan
Boone, Dinah's father, had built a mill, and here, according to Enoch Boone, son of the younger Squire, Jonathan
Boone about 1808. Elijah and Sally Garrison had, therefore, prior to their removal to Pike county, dwelt in the
neighborhood of her grandfather Jonathan Boone's last settlement. Following the Boones to Pike county came others
of their Posey county neighbors, and descendants thereof, among them Absalom and Catherine (Anderson) Boren, founders
of the Boren family in Montezuma, and later, J. G. Johnson, early proprietor of the Johnson House in Milton, whose
parents, Joseph and Esther (Jolly) Johnson, had been Posey county neighbors of the Boones, Allens and Garrisons.
Zachariah A. Garrison was married in Pike county on January 28, 1834, to Louisiana Davis, his mother's brother,
Lewis Allen, performing the ceremony. She, a daughter of Thomas Davis, died in 1839, and he married on April 22,
1841, his second wife being Miss Cyntha Watters; William Gale, a Baptist minister and kinsman (by marriage) of
the Boones, officiating. Cyntha Garrison died January 16, 1853. Of this second marriage one child was born, Hannah
J., who married Orsen Gilbert. His third wife was Lydia Wilson, a native of Ohio.
As early as 1835, when he was 20 years old, Zachariah A. Garrison was engaged in running log rafts down the Illinois
river. He afterwards followed the river as a pilot until 1852, when he became proprietor of a hotel at the southwest
corner of the square in Milton, which he conducted for eleven years. In 1861 he enlisted as captain of Company
E, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and two months afterward was appointed recruiting officer. In this capacity he
served until 1864, when he headed westward over the Oregon Trail, living then for some years in the state of Oregon.
Returning here, he settled at the big spring on the river road, in Montezuma township. He died on May 4, 1891,
at the age of 76.
Enoch W. Garrison was, like his great great uncle, Daniel Boone, a famous hunter. He was a hunter all his life;
farming in the summer, and in winter pursuing his hunting and trapping, often going on long hunting excursions
during other seasons of the year. He stalked the deer and wild turkeys by the streams and in the woodlands of eastern
and southeastern Pike county, and hunted coons where Milton now stands. On one occasion a panther chased his dogs
from the site of modern Milton. He was a crack shot and stories were told in the pioneer settlement of his hunting
prowess, even as they were told of his famous kinsman, Daniel Boone. In the art of "barking off" squirrels,
he was reputed to be almost as expert as the great Boone himself.
"Barking off" squirrels is perhaps best described by the celebrated naturalist, John James Audubon (Ornithological
Biography, pages 293-4), who once observed Daniel Boone in a skillful demonstration of this acme of the hunter's
art. Says he:
"Barking off squirrels is a delightful sport, and, in my opinion, requires a greater degree of accuracy than
any other. I first witnessed this manner of procuring squirrels whilst near the town of Frankfort (Ky.). The performer
was the celebrated Daniel Boone. We walked out together, and followed the rocky margins of the Kentucky river,
until we reached a piece of flat land thickly covered with black walnuts, oaks and hickories. As the general mast
was a good one that year, squirrels were seen gamboling on every tree around us. My companion, a stout, hale and
athletic man dressed in a homespun hunting shirt, bare-legged and moccasined, carried a long and heavy rifle which,
as he was loading it, he said had efficient in all his former undertakings, and which he hoped would not fail on
this occasion, as he felt proud to show me his skill. The gun was wiped, the powder measured, the ball patched
with six-hundred-thread linen, and the charge sent home with a hickory rod. He moved not a step from the place,
for the squirrels were so numerous it was unnecessary to go after them. Boone pointed to one of these animals which
had observed us and was crouched on a branch about 50 paces distant, and bade me mark well the spot where the ball
should hit. He raised his piece gradually, until the bead (that being the name given by the Kentuckians to the
sight) of the barrel was brought to a line with the spot which he intended to hit. The whip-like report resounded
through the woods and along the hills in repeated echoes. Judge of my surprise, when I perceived that the ball
had hit the piece of bark immediately beneath the squirrel, and shivered it into splinters, the concussion produced
by which had killed the animal, and sent it whirling through the air, as if it had been blown up by the explosion
of a powder magazine. Boone kept up his firing and before many hours had elapsed we had procured as many squirrels
as we wished."
Enoch W. Garrison, it is said, could imitate with fidelity the various calls of the wild. His wild turkey gobbling,
said to have been as perfect as that of the best Indian gobbler, lured many a wild turkey within range of his deadly
rifle. He was able to point out many places where he had shot a young deer and slung it across his shoulders, sometimes
toting the carcass for miles to his home to replenish the family larder with venison steak. He recalled having
often seen as many as a half dozen deer feeding in a group, and knowing their favorite haunts and their accustomed
watering places, he often lay in wait until he was able to bag a deer to his liking. He remembered having seen
in the early days of his settlement here as many as a half dozen coons in a single tree; the wild bee he followed
to its lair in some hollow tree trunk, thereby securing sweetening for the family table.
Fifty-six years ago, this grandson of the Boones, relating his pioneer experiences in Pike county, told of his
lack of educational advantages, almost as meager as those of his illustrious kinsman, Daniel Boone. There were
no schools, he said, when his family settled in the county. In a few years, however, came the days of subscription
schools and teachers with ox gads in their hands; he remembered attending school for a short time in a log cabin
where Milton now stands.
Enoch W. Garrison resided for many years on the SW sub-division of the NW fractional quarter of Section 2, Pearl
township. Like his brother, Zachariah A., he was three times married. On December 14, 1839, he married Harriet
Watters, a sister of Cyntha A. Watters, to whom his brother, Zachariah, was later married. This first wife died
September 29, 1860, aged 39 years. Her son, Joseph R., died February 14, 1847, aged four days; another son, Silias
(Silas) W., died August 19, 1845, aged one year and eleven months. August 19, 1845, aged one year and eleven months.
Markers stand in Green Pond cemetery to these two great grandsons of the Boones, and also to the mother Harriet,
wife of Enoch W. Garrison.
On October 29, 1860, Enoch W. Garrison was again married, his second wife being Sarah Bowen. On April 24, 1871,
he married Mrs. Nancy Coats who survived him at his death. He became the father of eight children, the latest surviving
being William Zachariah, who married Edna J. Butler, April 12, 1873; Lewis A. (Second of the name in Pike county),
who married Martha E. Marshall, July 29, 1883; Hannah L., who married Levi Davis, December 26, 1870; and Enoch
W., Jr., who first married Laura Butler of Montezuma, August 26, 1877. She died on Buckhorn, March 26, 1884, of
spinal meningitis and typhoid, and is buried at Green Pond. Enoch's second marriage was with Fannie L. Long, August
7, 1884. She was a daughter of Thomas S. Long of Pearl Prairie, who was a native of Bucks county, Pennsylvania,
where Squire and Sarah (Morgan) Boone resided prior to their removal to North Carolina in 1750. Fannie M. Long's
mother was Mary Peacock, daughter of Henry Peacock, an early settler in Calhoun.
Enoch W. Garrison (the elder) was born in Posey county, Indiana, December 22, 1818, nineteen days after Illinois
became a state; he died in Pearl township May 8, 1895, aged 76. He was eight years old when he came to Pike county
with his parents. He, with numerous other Garrisons, is buried in Green Pond cemetery, in the southern part of
Montezuma township, a short distance east of Illinois State Route 100, between Milton and Pearl. Here, on discolored
and weather-beaten stones, may be traced the names of many of Boone lineage.