Early Days in Illinois
Morris Birkbeck was an Englishman who came to the United States and settled in southeastern Illinois where he founded the town of Albion. His account of the people and life in Illinois in 1817, just before it became a state, is good reporting. He has a sharp eye for detail, and because he was fresh from Europe, he sees and records the contrasts between the Midwestern backwoods and the Old World. The following selection comes from his book, Notes on a Journey in America, from the Coast of Virginia to the Territory of Illinois.
August 1. Dagley’s, twenty miles north of Shawnee Town. After viewing several beautiful prairies, so beautiful with their surrounding woods as to seem like the creation of fancy, gardens of delight in a dreary wilderness, and after losing our horses and spending two days in recovering them, we took a hunter as our guide and proceeded across the Little Wabash to explore the country between that river and the Skillet-fork.
Since we left the Fox settlement, about fifteen miles north of the Big Prairie, cultivation has been very scanty, many miles intervening between the little “clearings.” This may therefore be truly called a new country.
These lonely settlers are poorly off—their bread corn must be ground thirty miles off, requiring three days to carry to the mill and bring back the small horse-load of three bushels. Articles of family manufacture are very scanty, and what they purchase is of the meanest quality and excessively dear: yet they are friendly and willing to share their simple fare with you. It is surprising how comfortable they seem, wanting everything. To struggle with privations has now become the habit of their lives, most of them having made several successive plunges into the wilderness, and they begin already to talk of selling their “improvements” and getting still farther “back” on finding that emigrants of another description are thickening about them.
Our journey across the Little Wabash was a complete departure from all mark of civilization. We saw no bears, as they are now buried in the thickets, and seldom appear by day; but, at every few yards, we saw recent marks of their doings, “wallowing” in the long grass or turning over decayed logs in quest of beetles or worms, in which work the strength of this animal is equal to that of four men. Wandering without track, where even the sagacity of our hunter-guide had nearly failed us, we at length arrived at the cabin of another hunter, where we lodged.
This man and his family are remarkable instances of the effect on the complexion produced by the perpetual incarceration [imprisonment] of a thorough woodland life. Incarceration may seem to be a term less applicable to the condition of a roving backwoodsman than to any other, and especially unsuitable to the habits of this individual and his family; for the cabin in which he entertained us is the third dwelling he has built within the last twelve months, and a very slender motive would place him in a fourth before the ensuing winter. In his general habits the hunter ranges as freely as the beasts he pursues; labouring under no restraint, his activity is only bounded by his own physical powers: still he is incarcerated—“Shut from the common air.” Buried in the depth of a boundless forest, the breeze of health never reaches these poor wanderers; the bright prospect of distant hills fading away into the semblance of clouds, never cheered their sight. They are tall and pale, like vegetables that grow in a vault, pining for light....
Our stock of provisions being nearly exhausted, we were anxious to provide ourselves with a supper by means of our guns, but we could meet with neither deer nor turkey; however, in our utmost need, we shot three raccoons, an old one to be roasted for our dogs and the two young ones to be stewed up daintily for ourselves. We soon lighted a fire and cooked the old raccoon for the dogs; but famished as they were, they would not touch it, and their squeamishness so far abated our relish for the promised stew that we did not press our complaining landlady to prepare it; and thus our supper consisted of the residue of our “corn” bread and no raccoon. However, we laid our bear skins on the filthy earth (floor there was none), which they assured us was “too damp for fleas,” and wrapped in our blankets slept soundly enough; though the collops [slices] of venison hanging in comely rows in the smoky fireplace and even the shoulders put by for the dogs and which were suspended over our heads would have been an acceptable prelude to our night’s rest, had we been invited to partake of them; but our hunter and our host were too deeply engaged in conversation to think of supper. In the morning the latter kindly invited us to cook some of the collops, which we did by toasting them on a stick, and he also divided some shoulders among the dogs; so we all fared sumptuously.
The cabin, which may serve as a specimen of these rudiments of houses, was formed of round logs with apertures of three or four inches between. No chimney, but large intervals between the “clapboards” for the escape of the smoke. The roof was, however, a more effectual covering than we have generally experienced, as it protected us very tolerably from a drenching night. Two bedsteads of unhewn logs and cleft boards laid across; two chairs, one of them without a bottom, and a low stool were all the furniture required by this numerous family. A string of buffalo hide stretched across the hovel was a wardrobe for their rags; and their utensils, consisting of a large iron pot, some baskets, the effective rifle and two that were superannuated [too old to use], stood about in corners, and the fiddle, which was only silent when we were asleep, hung by them.