_______________________________________________________
---Chapter 1: Birth and Early Childhood---
_______________________________________________________
I was born on the sixteenth day of September, 1828, in the town of Sangamon, Sangamon County, Illinois.
My great grandparents were all natives of England and came to America early in the seventeenth century; all the four families came at about the same time although it was many years later that the first acquaintance began between the two families who were among the first settlers in a region of territory in the middle West. About two years later my father and mother were married at Oxford, Ohio.
I will now trace the lineage of these Americanized families. Great grandfather, Lemuel Lemmon, was born in England and with his wife came to America to make their home in the young colony of Maryland, being among the first to settle in that colony. Great grandfather was a preacher of the Baptist church and respected by all who knew him as a quiet and industrious citizen.
His eldest son, Lemuel Lemmon, who was born in England, married a Miss Sarah Burke of that colony, and several years later they moved to the territory of Kentucky where on June 8th, 1800, John was born.
In the year 1812 the unsettled condition of the country caused them, with many others to seek new homes in the territory of Ohio, where they settled on a fine tract of land near the town of Oxford, and a pleasant home was soon established. The older sons, Elisha, Elijah and Eulic, settled on lands oftheir own. My father, the youngest son, remained in the home after great grandfather's death and assumed the care of his mother, a maiden sister, Miss Mary Lemmon, known to us as Aunt Polly; later an orphaned niece, Sarah Baker, became a member of the family. Aunt Polly was an ideal old maid of former generations, and her prided virtues and womanly ways might well be emulated in this day and age of the world. She was known and loved by a large circle of friends and relatives.
My maternal grandparents, the Bournes and Crockers, came to America during the War of the Roses in England and settled in Massachusetts. Great grandfather was born in what is now a part of Maine. His parents gave each of their children the advantage of a good education, and their son, Benjamin, my grandfather, taught school for many years in Barnstable county, where he was married to Miss Elizabeth Bourne in the year of 1807. In June of 1808, my mother, Jane Bourn Crocker, was born.
The War of 1812 came on, and as there were several sons in the families of my great uncles, and as the conditions were so unsettled that in consideration of the then aged great grandfather Bourbe, it was decided to remove to then far West. The new home was selected near the town of Fairfield, Indiana, and as that town is just across the line from Oxford, Ohio, the two families were now in the vicinity of each other, although it was some time later that my father and mother met for the first time.
In the year 1826 my father and mother were married in the home of my grandfather, Benjamin Crocker. Soon after that even they moved to the Territory of Illinois and settled on a rented farm near Sangamon town on the banks of the Illinois river. Here they cultivated a large tract of land and had planted a 40 acre field of corn which bid fair to yield a handsome return but a sudden rise of the river washed the entire growing crop away and my father then moved into Sangamon town where he tool charge of the large woolen mill of that town and traded his livestock and farm implements for a house and lot near the place of work. It was in this home that I was born. Father's wages were about thirty-seven and one-half cents a day, yet by economy and good management he soon had the means to preempt a good piece of land on the river and when I was about three years of age we moved to the new home where father began farming extensively by renting a large field near our own home.
I can give no exact date as to when my education in the way of book knowledge began for I wasable to read anything in my Sabbath School lessons when four years of age, and it was my daily task to read and recite lessons in reading and spelling to my mother. Mother was a well educated woman of her time and a student of history and good literature. Our library consisted of two large Bibles, a dictionary, several histories, a set of school books, and my chest of Sunday School literature that had been sent to me from relatives in Massachusetts. Among these books were the writings of John and Charles Wesley, the life of John Newton, Milton's poems, and many tracts and other religious writings that I do not think of general interest. Mother divided my time as exact as the periods of work in a school and it was one hour for play and an hour for study regular as the moving of the hands on the face of our old wall sweep clock. I was fond of chasing at father's heels as he plowed or went hoeing through the long rows of corn and well do I recall the mad racing over the fields to get every possible minute of play time in the fields, but the sound of the "Dinner Horn" was my signal and if I ran merrily out to play I came as promptly back in loving obedience to mother's call to lessons.
Thus the happy years went on until I assured them that I could make a "hand" at dropping corn and by that means I got the much coveted outdoor life and the release from study that had so often been the subject of my thoughts. I must say that I was fond of study and even in those early years committed to memory gems of literature that have been the source of much comfort to me even down to these later days of my life, and no stronger characters are to be found in all the world's history than were those whose lives I traced through the study of Scriptural subjects. My Kings were real and my Queens ruled with judgment tempered with justice. Such were the ideals of my early education and I have never seen such greatness manifested in any other way. All the world's worship cannot make a truly great man where there is not the proper quality of heart to build upon. Such is my judgment of such characters as King David of Israel, King Edward of England, our George Washington, our Abraham Lincoln, and in fact, every one whose life work is tempered with justice and whose feelings were merciful to their fellow creatures.
But, to return to my story. In this home two sons were born to my parents, Benjamin and Amos. The death of these infant brothers left me as an only child until I was almost nine years of age. The loneliness that fell to us accounts in a measure for the special care that was bestowed upon my early education.
On July fourth my only living brother was born in the year 1837. This brother was endeared to me by the care of his welfare that fell to me in his early life and by our association in times of peril and great suffering that was so early in life to befall us. The following chapters will give some account of these events.
I will now give some description of the region where I first became acquainted with the beauties of nature and viewed the wondrous work of the Creator in placing so beautiful and so wonderful a world as the temporal abode of His children. This part of the state of Illinois is of special interest to the student of nature who delights in gorgeous tints and its strangest moods.
The Illinois River was the boundary on one side of our home and the hills or bluffs, as the people there called them, bounded the other side, standing back from the river a distance of from two and one-half to fifteen miles. The base of these hills was thick-set with a dense natural growth of Beanwood or "Red-bud," as we children have called them, also sassafras bushe, Black Walnut, Sugar Maple and an occasional copse of Sumac or Witch-hazel.
The tops of the bald hills in the background rising in sugar-loaf form gave them a picturesque appearance upon which one could gaze without tiring. And especially was this true in the Spring of the year when budding and blooming shrubbery nestled at the base of every knoll giving a variety of shades of color in that harmony and blending that can be produced only by nature in her beautiful and wonderful perfection and which can never be reproduced but only partially imitated by even the most gifted of artists.
Looking toward the river you may see it curving and bending like some giant of creeping monsters until it apparently glides into the dim and distant haze, its course being outlined by the thickly set growth of large timber that skirted its banks. This timber consisted of Hickory, Black Walnut, Pecan. Persimmon trees and groves of Sugar Maple. This timber grew in alluvial soil or sub-irrigated river silt and each specimen was a wonder in itself on account of the enormous size and beauty of perfection.
The prairie land lay between these timbered banks and the foot hills. The intervening space of alluvial prairie soil was thick-set with a tall wild grass which very much resembled one vast meadow of Timothy grass.
The wild deer were as numerous in those days as are the cattle of a thousand hills of today. Wild birds were also numerous. Quails or Bob-Whites were hunted for the markets and a regular trade in dressed birds was carried on with the markets down the river. The killing of birds and wild deer was the only source of income to many of the settlers, but my father never resorted to that means of income and preferred to attend the regular lines of farm work, and results proved that his decision was a wise one for we soon had a pleasant home and an abundant living. Father was a noted rifleman and when he went out for game we knew that some handsome quarry would grace his effort.
Steamboats came occasionally to Beardstown but they did not make regular trips in thosedays and most of the traffic was carried in smaller boats managed by oarsmen.
The work of civilization and improvement went steadily on and at a rapid rate. Neat homes were in evidence on every side, fields of growing corn, and all the mechanical accessories of refined life were being brought in.
During these stages of the world's work I was advancing from the stages of juvenile life to that of girlhood. The reflective mind recalls that period of my life as largely devoted to the climbing of Red-bud bushes and Sassafras trees in quest of their bloom laden boughs. The change from Spring to Autumn, the snows of winter and the chilling winds of early Spring seem to make but slightly varied impressions on my mind, as life through those years seemed to me to be one perpetual round of light-heartedness and the tablets of memory has recorded only one unvaried season of pleasureable delights.
If the winds blew I heeded them not. In memory I seem to have been ever hugging profusions of flowers, admiring their beauty of coloring, delighting in their gorgeous hues, or bearing them tenderly in my arms to the home where it was my delight to adorn the living rooms for the admiration of my parents and they wisely enough encouraged this sort of innocent pastime, thereby cultivating in me a taste for the beautiful and fostering the tender emotions which those innocent pastimes awoke.
Later in the Summer I made short excursions to the nearby hills in quest of delicious fruits, Strawberries, Blackberries, Wild Grapes, and Plums, which were abundant and in convenient distances from our home. These were made into various forms for table use and were the luxuries of those times.
Cultivated fruits were scarce as the orchards of the earlier settlers were just beginning to bear fruit, although in the richness of the soil and the favorable seasons made that locality noted in later years for the production of nearly all the choicest varieties of fruits and vegetables.
I will mention the mosquitoes, for they sometimes made life a burden with their constant annoyance. The tweet, tweet of the frogs, the croaking of the great bull-frogs, each roaring out his note as though as hollow as a bass drum.
My parents were painstaking and frugal with their work and our home was soon the pride of the neighborhood, and we enjoyed a good degree of prosperity. I must not fail to mention that I was kept regularly at my lessons and I now sometimes took the task of writing letters to the relatives whom I had never seen.
Mother was a great student and read a great deal with me. This was a great stimulus to me, for I could do much better work when she too was occupied with reading and she read ancient and modern history with avidity. I studied my lessons as a matter of duty to myself and my parents. The hours of play and roaming about the nearby wilds were for recreation and the love of nature made each moment dear to me. My highest ambition was to grow into a studious girl and return to the old home of my mother's people in Massachusetts to complete my education, then to become a missionary and write books for other little girls to read. But my star of destiny was to arise in the far West and here, near where the waves kiss our Western shores, my little span of life will end.