ELLEDGE'S MILL, or Elledge's "corn-cracker," as it was called along Big Sandy, was one of the important
institutions of the pioneer settlement in the neighborhood of present Winchester. Neddie Elledge's grist mill on
Sandy is listed as one of the assets of his estate, following his death in 1829. The records of his estate are
on file in the court house at Jacksonville, Illinois. Elledge's Mill, much frequented by the early settlers, passed
with the passing of its owner.
The difficulties attendant upon early milling are illustrated in the case of Uriah Elledge (Boone Elledge's eldest
son and early settler at Griggsville), who, on first arriving in present Scott county in 1823, "had to go
to Upper Alton on Wood River, a distance of 125 miles, to mill." (History of Pike County, Ill. --Chicago,
Chas. C. Chapman & Co., 1880, P 536). Note: The route was east to Island Grove, 16 miles west of present Springfield,
thence by the old Indian trail to Wood River. In 1826, Uriah Elledge's milling troubles were greatly alleviated
when John Pearson built a rude mill within about two miles of the Elledge cabin.
The importance of the mills to the settler is told by C. C. Squiers, a pioneer of this region, in reference to
the early corn-crackers, of which Neddie Elledge's mill was one:
"There were two or three corn crackers (sometimes called grist mills) and most of them were run by water power,
if the ponds did not dry up, which, however they did in the last summer and fall. Many a poor man who had a family
to provide for, would shell a little corn, put it in a sack, throw it over his shoulder, and carry it from three
to five miles to one of these corn crackers, only to learn after his arrival there that there was not water in
the pond and the mill had shut down. The next thing the man would ask the miller, ‘Have you any meal on hand that
you could swap for some corn?' Of course the miller would swap and take corn, if he had any meal to spare, but
likely as not he could not accommodate the man. In that case perhaps the man could not accommodate the man. In
that case perhaps the man could do no better than take his corn to a temporary mortar and pound his corn so that
he would have an imitation of meal." (Quoted by George W. Carpenter in his History of Calhoun County, 1934.)
Neddie Elledge's mill, with its limestone burrs, turned out a product that had plenty of substance. Like the product
from William Ross' early mill at Atlas, meal from Elledge's mill was said by the settlers to run "three packs
meal and one pack stone dust to the bushel." Elledge's early attempt at milling was followed in the spring
of 1825, by a water mill on Little Sandy creek, about three miles south of Winchester, which was the first mill
in the territory that ground wheat. This latter mill was built by Joel Meacham, a bachelor, who later founded Meacham's
Ferry, now Montezuma, in Pike county. Meacham had associated with him in the milling business a man by the name
of Fuller.
The wheat at Meacham's mill was ground on the corn burrs and bolted by hand. A little revolving bolting cloth,
with a handle like a grindstone, was turned with one hand, and fed with the other. The stones were made of granite
boulders, known in those days as "lost rocks." A little tub-wheel, the upright shaft, a large cog-wheel
on the top of it, a smaller one to give speed to the burrs, and the hand-bolting apparatus, constituted all the
machinery in the Meacham Mill. (Judge J. M. Riggs in his Sketch of Scott County, 1903.)
When the water courses and ponds dried up and the tub-wheels were idle, the early Elledges and Scholls depended
chiefly on Dayton's horse mill on Mauvaisterre, northwest of Jacksonville, or on the early Exeter mill, begun by
old man Mills in 1821, who passed it on unfinished to Daniel Dinsmore (Densmore in the old record), forebear of
the early Pike county Dinsmores, who in turn passed it on to a man named March and the mill was put in operation
in 1823. At this time, Ross had a horse mill at Atlas and John Shaw one at Coles' Grove (now Gilead).
One of the greatest difficulties encountered by the early settlers was in having their milling done. Henry J. Williams,
native of Scott county, Kentucky, who settled in Montezuma township in 1833 and who once related at an Old Settlers'
meeting of having been in Pittsfield when there was but one house there and the prairie grass was as high as a
horse's back, told of having ridden 10 miles on horseback many times to mill, arriving there before daylight, and
of occasions when he had gone to mill every day in the week, returning with no meal on Saturday night, so slow
and so thronged were the early mills.
In the latter 1820s, Elledge's corn cracker on Sandy began to lose business to Adam Allinson's new ox mill on the
high mound where Stephen Olmstead first settled, and where, as recounted in a former chapter, the first circuit
court in Morgan county was held in the fall of 1823. Olmstead's Mound became known as Allinson's Mound, following
the settlement of the mound by the English Allinsons, who became intimately associated with the Elledge family,
especially with the family of Uriah Elledge, 1823 settler in what is now Scott county.
Thomas Quarton, one of the English settlers on Allinson's Mound, who came from Osgodby, near Selby, England in
April 1829, and settled near Allinson on land that cost him "5s, 6d, per acre," in a letter to a brother
in England, dated "Jacksonville, October 17th, 1829," wrote:
"He (Allinson) has a large property here; he has a good mill, which goes by eight oxen; they make very good
flour; a miller is an excellent business here. They take a fifth part for moulter, and all the bran and pollard
and boultings; they make about six stones in the load." Quarton in this letter directed his brother how he
should address him in this western country, as follows: "You must direct to me — Thomas Quarton, six miles
west of Jacksonville, Morgan County State of Illinois, North America. — You must pay the postage to Liverpool,
or the letter will come no further." (From "The Emigrant's Guide," S. H. Collins, Hull: Printed
and published by Joseph Noble, Market- place; and sold by Simpkin and Marshall, London; in library of James Farrand,
Griggsville, Ill.)
Another milling landmark of the period was Barney's horse mill, a few miles southeast of Pittsfield in what is
now Hardin township, operated by Benjamin B. Barney (not the Benjamin Barney of early Atlas), 1824 man who started
one of the earliest corn mills within the present confines of Pike county.. This was the famous "mill on a
stump," so often referred to by the early settlers. As late as 1847, Barney's Mills were of importance. In
old Scott county records, we find this:
"March 1, 1847 — Harvey M. Jarboe and two others were appointed a committee to locate and lay out a state
road, commencing at Bridgeport and Bedford ferry-landing and running thence by Pearl Prairie to Milton, in Pike
County, and on by way of Barney's Mills to Pittsfield." Jesse Scholl was one of the men who located this road.
Bridgeport was an early river port opposite Bedford. Smith & McPherson, proprietors of the horse ferry at this
point, in 1853, in J. M. Parkes' and John G. Nicolay's Pike County Free Press, advertised this as the "nearest
route from Alton, Carrollton, etc., to Milton, Pittsfield, and all the upper counties; also Missouri, Iowa and
Minnesota."
Several of Edward Boone Elledge's Boone ancestors were millers. At least two of Edward Boone's brothers, at one
time or another, followed milling as a business. Squire Boone had a mill at Squire Boone's Station, in Kentucky,
and another at Boone Settlement, on Buck Creek, in the Territory of Indiana, where he later settled. Jonathan Boone
is known to have tended Squire's mill in Kentucky, later erecting a mill of his own at the Big Falls, on the Wabash,
near Mt. Carmel, in Wabash county, Illinois.
To Edward Elledge, the Illinois country was hardly kind. He hoed a hard row. The wolf was often at his door. His
kinsman, A. T. Hite, sometimes came to his rescue; his notes, payable to Hite, tell the story. The little money
he brought with him from Kentucky was sunk in the mill and other improvements. When the land sales came in 1823,
he was in the same boat with two-thirds of the other settlers; he lacked the money to enter the land on which were
some of his improvements. As we have seen, he was ‘entered out" as to at least a part of his claim by a stranger
better fixed with the "ready."
His first year in the valley was a bitter one. His plow was rude, inadequately ironed; his steers unbroken; the
turf was stubborn. The seed bed was poorly ordered. The summer winds scorched and blistered; the corn withered
and dried before its time. The summer before, the corn had failed; there was none in reserve. The wilderness met
the newcomers with a snarl.
Immigrants, after the manner of the children of Israel, went down into Egypt (Southern Illinois) "to buy and
bring from thence that they might live and not die." Charles Robinson, of near Arenzville, under date of February
8, 1872, wrote this letter to the Chicago Journal, describing that bitter period:
"Fifty years ago, or in the summer of 1821, there was not a bushel of corn to be had in Central Illinois.
My father settled in that year 23 miles west of Springfield. We had to live for a time on venison, blackberries
and milk, while the men were gone to Egypt to harvest and procure breadstuffs. The land we improved was surveyed
that summer and afterwards bought of the government, the money being raised by sending beeswax down the Illinois
river to St. Louis in an Indian canoe. Dressed deer skins and tanned hides were then in use, and we made one piece
of cloth out of nettles instead of flax. Cotton indured well for a decade, until the deep snow of 1830."
Indians were still numerous in this region when the Neddie Elledges came. A story of Malinda Elledge and the Indians
is still a classic in the Exeter neighborhood, handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. The
story relates that Malinda went visiting one day to a neighbor's in the vicinity of present Lynnville, taking with
her youngest child in arms (Levina, who died in infancy). Returning home towards evening across the prairie she
saw strange figures on the roof of her cabin. Drawing nearer, she discovered they were Indians, squatted along
the ridge pole, smoking. Doubting not that her older children, Jemima, Lydia, James Boone and Tilford, had been
murdered, she hid her baby in the tall prairie grass and ran for the cabin, determined to fight the marauders single-
handed. The Indians, however, proved to be peaceable, and in the cabin, under the high one-post bed, the mother
found her children, huddled in fright, but unharmed. The Indians wanted pumpkins, and when supplied with the same,
went their way, leaving the mother free to go back and pick up her infant on the prairie.
Neddie Elledge died in Morgan (now Scott) county in 1829; the exact date is not disclosed in the records of his
estate. He was alive on June 29, 1829, on which date he signed a note for $35, payable to his kinsman and benefactor,
Archibald T. Hite, which note is among the papers pertaining to the estate. His death occurred sometime between
that date and October 8, 1829, on which date the sale of the effects of the deceased was held.
Malinda (Scholl) Elledge, the widow, and Edward's eldest brother, Preacher Jesse Elledge, became administrators
of the estate; William Scholl (Malinda's eldest brother) and Archibald T. Hite were their bondsmen. Edward left
in real property an 80 described as the W ½ NE Sec. 28, Township 14 North, Range 12 west of the Third Principal
Meridian; "with a grist mill and log house, two cabbins and other buildings;" also the W ½ of
SW frac. 1/4 of Sec. 31, 14 North, 12 West, "containing 80 acres with log house and other necessary buildings
and about 20 acres in cultivation."
Edward left three minor unmarried children, namely, Lydia (known as Liddy), James Boone and William Tilford Elledge.
William Scholl, Jesse B. Scholl and Thomas Cowhick were appointed by the court as guardians of these minors. The
eldest daughter, Jemima, also a minor, had married into the Beall family at the age of 16. Edward's widow, Malinda,
was a sister of Jesse B. and William Scholl, two of the appointed guardians of her children, they being sons of
Kentucky Peter Scholl and Mary Boone.
James Hatcher, William Crabtree and Thomas Cowhick were named appraisers of Edward Elledge's estate. The records
show these three pioneers meeting one night at the widow's cabin, where they deliberated long and earnestly over
the value of a cow and calf, part of the little property left by the deceased. The three appraisers at length determined
that the Elledges' cow and calf were worth $8. Money was so scarce then that $8 seemed a huge sum.
Let us go back 107 years to that pioneer sale held in the shadow of Elledge's Mill, October 8, 1829. The personal
property of the deceased is under the hammer. Samuel J. Kinkaid, Kentucky pioneer and kinsman of the Scholls and
Boones, is crying the sale; Seth Pratt is clerking. The property under the hammer is mostly the rude furniture
brought from Kentucky in the migration of 1822.
At the sale, we find a numerous gathering of Boone kin. The records people the scene; among the bidders are Peter
Scholl, Mary Boone's grandson, and his father-in-law, Thomas Cowhick; Jesse Elledge, pioneer United Baptist preacher
and grandson of Edward Boone; Dudley Scholl, second of that name among the children of Kentucky Peter Scholl and
Mary Boone, the first Dudley having died in infancy; Hugh Mikel, who married Charity Scholl, daughter of Mary Boone;
William Elledge, son, and Uriah Elledge, grandson of Charity Boone; Malinda Elledge (daughter of Mary Boone), and
her children, of whom Lydia, we are told, was "one of the fairest blossoms on the border"; Edward A.
Scholl, a son of William and a grandson of Mary Boone; and William and Jesse B. Scholl, sons of Mary Boone.
Abraham Scholl, Kentucky Peter's Pike county brother, whose paternal grandmother, Jane Morgan, was a sister of
Daniel and Edward Boone's mother, also was present at this sale.
The prices shown by the sale bill, with their odd 1/4 and ½ cents, reflect a period when the picayune (a
6 1/4 cent piece) and the "bit" (a 12 ½ cent piece) were in vogue. Andrew Philips, son of Nimrod,
for instance, has a bed and bedding knocked off to him for $27.31 1/4, and a pair of "beetle bells" for
37 ½ cents. (Beetle bells were wooden bell-shaped pestles for beating or mashing cooked vegetables, etc.)
Abraham Scholl bought Edward's set of turning tools and lathe for $5; Dudley Scholl bought a cotton wheel for $1;
Peter Scholl a side saddle for 50 cents. The entire sale amounted to $209.50.
According to a statement of Squire Nathan Thornton of Milton in 1906, Matilda Scholl Elledge and her husband and
family came out at the same time as did his maternal grandparents, Zachariah and Dinah (Boone) Allen, in the spring
of 1822. Squire Thornton, in his statement, was somewhat confused as to the identity of Malinda. Thornton supposed
her to be a granddaughter of Daniel Boone, whereas she was a granddaughter of Daniel's brother Edward; he also
referred to her as being the wife of Joseph Jackson at that time, whereas Malinda did not become the wife of Joseph
Jackson (her second husband) until ten years later, three years after the death of her first husband, Edward Boone
Elledge. Squire Thornton was also mistaken in his statement that Malinda and her husband crossed the river with
his grandparents in the spring of ‘22 and then went on to Pleasant Vale township, where they settled. This settlement
in Pleasant Vale did not take place until 1832, after Malinda's marriage to Jackson.
Dinah Boone, whose thrilling story has been recounted in earlier chapters, was a daughter of Jonathan Boone, brother
of Daniel and Edward. She married Zachariah Allen, a brother of that Thomas Allen who married Charity (Sarah) Elledge,
daughter of Charity Boone and Francis Elledge; Thomas Allen building the first white man's cabin in the territory
that now embraces Morgan, Scott and Cass counties; his wife being the first white woman settler in what is now
Scott. Zachariah Allen, one of that glorious revolutionary band celebrated in Bryant's "Song of Marion's Men,"
died in Detroit township in 1825 and is buried in a lost grave near Milton, beside his wife, Dinah Boone, who died
in 1823; their graves lie within the present boundaries of the French cemetery, southwest of Milton village. It
was at Zachariah Allen's cabin in Detroit township that Jemima Boone Callaway, Daniel Boone's daughter, visited
in 1825, as recounted earlier in this history.
Edward Elledge was born in Kentucky in 1792, the year that Kentucky State itself was born. The Shawnees were then
on the war path; the Kentucky settlements again shuddered in the presence of the stake and the torture. Awful scenes
of carnage, pillage, outrage and massacre had been perpetrated by the Shawnee tribe, who had not participated in
the peace treaty of 1789. Exposed and unprotected cabins were invaded and their inmates brutally murdered or subjected
to the most fiendish tortures. One historian of the period relates that in two years nearly fifteen hundred white
people were killed on Kentucky soil. Judge Thomas of Jacksonville, who attended circuit court at Atlas in 1827,
related that Neddie Elledge once told him that the "war cry of the Shawnees was his first cradle song."
(from a letter to Marcellus Ross, in possession of the late William S. Binns, long secretary of the Pike County
Old Settlers' Association.)