Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1910-06-04

event is so intimately connected, not
only with Andalusia, but with my very
existence and well being, that l must
here drop one thread of my story to
take up another and follow it until
they meet
Fresh from the battle of Lundy's
Lane, my grandfather on the distaff
side, Joseph Eby, long resident of
Andalusia, settled in Chautauqua
county, n. Y, at a place then and now
known as Westfield, and had estab'
lished teaming route over the old
Cumberland road from what is now
known as Buffalo, at the foot of Lake
Erie, to Pittsburg beyond the Allegha-
MES. He belonged to that class known
as the thrifty settlers, who came
just behind the pioneers of western
New York and Maryland. During 80
years the emigrant trains, SO often
portrayed both by painters and travel
ers, had been gradually disappearing
beyond the Alleghanies and into Ohio,
Indiana and the Illinois country From
1910 to 1850 the high-peaked wagons
with their white canvas covers, the
little herd-tne oxen to draw the
wagon, the COWS for milk and butter,
with the bedding and little household
furniture and fewer cooking utensils,
the company of sturdy men and wom-
en-, with large families, were to be
seen travelling westward on all the
highways from the Ohio to the Mis-
sissippi rivers. Mr.. McMaster, in his
history of the people of the U. S., de
scribing the times that Grandfather
Eby came from beyond the Blue
Ridge says:
Beyond the Blue Ridge everything
was most primitive Half the roads
were traces and blazed. More than
half the houses, even in the settle
ments, were log cabins. When a
stranger came, to such a place to stay,
the men built him a cabin, and made
the building an occasion of sport. The
trees felled, four corner men were
elected to notch the logs and while
they weEn busy the others ran races,
wrestled, played leapfrog, kicked the
hat, fought, gouged, gambled, drank,
did everything then considered an
amusement. After the notching was
finished the raising took place and
took but a few hours. Many a time
the cabin was built, rooted, the doors
and windows cut out, and the owner
moved in before shutdown. The
chinks were stopped with chips and
smeared with mud. The chimney was
of logs. coated with clay mud six
inches thick The table and the
benches, the bedstead and the door,
were such as could be made with an
axe, an augur and a saw. A rest for
the rifle and some pegs for clothes
completed the fittings. The clothing
of a man was, in summer, wool hat,
blue linsey hunting shirt with a
cape. a belt with a galy colored fringe,
deerskin or linsey pantaloons, and
moccasins and shoe packs of tanned
leather. Fur hats were not uncommon.
A boot was rarely to be seen. In win
ter the wooden, dyed chestnut gray,
for shirt and homespun wooden blan-
kets for coats"
Met Future Bride.
In the pursuit of his teaming to the
Blue Ridge, Mr. Eby from time to time
passed through Hagerstown, Md. He
there made the acquaintance of one
Elizabeth Hershey, my grandmother
on the distaff side, whoswas also long
a resident of Andalusia.
About 1887 or 1888, they, in common
with many other western New York
and Maryland people, hearing from the
returning pioneers of the glorious
Illinois country, were stricken with
the then ever prevalent and very con-
a If eaFfO fcrr q
longing to make home for themselves
and families. So he and his wife and
five sons and five daughters started
for the glorious west about the spring
of the year 1912 With his tares and
penates collected in covered wagon
drawn by a six yoke of oxen team,
he started to traverse the old Cumber-
land pike and to climb and cross the
Blue Ridge and old Fort Pitt and
thence down the Ohio valley to Gin
cinnati and Marietta and thence to
Vincennes on the Wabash and through
the Kaskaskia country to Beardstown,
and thence to Fort Clark, now Peoria,
and finally to Buffalo Prairie. Illinois
had been admitted into the union as a
free state in 1918, the Black Hawk
war had freed this section of Indians,
and from 1925 to 1916 there was an
immense immigration into this vicin-
ity, many of the early settlers of Ohio
coming here, and some of them set
ting around Andalusia. The state was
about to frame new constitution and
the promise was of future empire on
every hand. Long and weary was the
way from Lake Erie to the Mississippi,
filled with dangers and hardships, but,
also, with pleasures as well; they
came some of them via of old Fort
Consultation in the days of "Tippe-
canoe and Tyler too hard cider and
Harrison; their principal meat was
the product of their rifles and the
chase. Many a winters night during
the winters of 1872 and 1928, vhue
my father was in California and
mother and l lived with my Grand
father Eby have sat by the great old
open fireplace, with its great and wide
open chimney with a shell-bark hick-
Orv for a backlog and with that the