Published in 1880 and authored by Spencer Ellsworth, Records of the Olden Time is full of many biographies, portraits, and illustrations. The first 600 pages offer incredible stories. Excerpts have been provided below and throughout this site.
The first birth in Belle Plain Township is believed to have
been that of Nancy Jane Bennington, now Mrs. William M. Hatton.
She made her first appearance March 22, 1833. Robert
Bennington's daughter Eunice, died about the same time, and
her's is supposed to have been the first funeral.
The first wedding in the vicinity was probably that of Daniel
Hester and Miss Hallam, when James Martin tied his first
official matrimonial knot as Justice of the Peace. He says he
will never forget the occasion, as there were present nearly all
of his neighbors large and small, beside a number of strangers
dressed in "store clothes," and he was so terribly "frustrated" that he hardly knows what he said or how he got through with
it. He was at first somewhat encouraged when he observed that
the bride and groom were both very nervous too, but when he came
to hear the tremulous tones of his own voice in the awful
stillness, he felt weak and faint-like and devoutly wished he
had never in his life consented to be an Esquire. But he adds
with commendable pride," The job was sufficiently good, as the
marriage proved a happy one and no divorce court
ever overhauled my work or picked flaws in it."
This was once an important political division of Marshall
County. In 1833 it belonged to the jurisdiction of La Salle
County, and on the 30th day of March of that year an election
was held for justices of the peace and Constables. The exact
spot whereon this important event transpired is not certain, but
the best sources of information point out as the probable one a
large log near the center of the settlement.
The poll books, in possession of Thomas Judd, Esq., do not
mention more than that the voters were : Dudley Humphrey, John
S. Hunt, John Darnell, Thomas Dixon, Benjamin Darnell, Thomas
Judd, Abram Darnell, Barton Jones, Justus Jones, George Martin,
Josiah W. Martin, Joshua Evans, Alvah Humphrey, Horace Gaylord
and Lemuel Gaylord.
Justus Jones and Richard Hunt were elected Justices of the
Peace, and Barton Jones and George Martin, Constables. The
officers of the election were: Alvah Humphrey, Joshua Evans and
Horace Gaylord, Judges, and Thomas Judd and George Martin,
Clerks.
The Justices are said to have exercised their judicial functions
with credit, and the Constables were sufficiently alert and
active. There was but little legislation in those days. The law
of kindness and mutual forbearance governed, and few sought to
take advantages of a neighbor. Business transactions were
conducted on the principles of right and perfect justice, and
crime was unknown in this orderly community, so the officers and
minions of the law had nothing to do. When misunderstandings
arose friendly arbitration was invoked by both sides, and no
appeal was sought.
On the 4th day of August, 1834, the electors met at the new log
school house and voted for State officers. Joseph Duncan had
fourteen votes for Governor, and William Kinney two; Benjamin
Mills, ten for Representative in Congress; William Stadden,
twelve for Sheriff; William Richey and Isaac Dimmick had
a majority of all the votes cast for County Commissioners of La
Salle County. There were in all sixteen votes cast at this
election, being the same persons with one or two exceptions who
voted at the first meeting.
In August, 1835, Thomas Judd and Justus Jones were elected
Justices, and William Brown and Horace Gaylord, Constables.
In August, 1836, Stephen A. Douglas and John T. Stewart were
candidates for Congress.
The former, on the Democratic side, received nine votes, and the
latter, the Whig, ten votes. Up to this date politics had been
little discussed in public. The settlers had come from the east
and south, and each had brought with him some party
predilictions, but party agitation had caused the voters of
Sandy to take sides, with the result as indicated.
William Stadden and William Reddick, prominent citizens of
Ottawa, were well known to the voters of this Precinct, and at
this election the former was elected State Senator and the
latter Sheriff.
At the Presidential election, November 7, 1836, party lines were
drawn, and eight citizens of Sandy voted the Democratic ticket.
The electors voted openly for the candidate of his choice.
In those days political papers had not begun to circulate and
stir up that bitterness of feeling so characteristic of their
efforts, and while men voted on different sides but little was
said, and no violent language or work at the polls disturbed the
good nature and serenity of the people.
The only newspapers in the West were at Galena, Springfield,
Chicago or Varidalia, or at Terre Haute, Indiana, and when one
happened to stray into the settlement it was a month or two in
coming. Election tickets, a necessity of the secret ballot, had
not been invented. The voter merely thrust his head in at the
window of the polling place, and announced his preference of
candidates, the clerks recording his name and tallying the vote
opposite that of the candidate.
After a county election it was two or three weeks before the
poll books were all in and the vote counted, and often a month
or more would elapse before the result was definitely known
throughout the county, and it required as many months to
disseminate the result of a Presidential contest.
The general election of 1840 brought out the most of the voters
of Sandy Precinct, as it did all over the country, and
thirty-three votes were polled, sixteen Democratic and seventeen
Whig, and this was the first time that Abraham Lincoln's name
was conspicuously brought before the public. He was on the Whig
ticket as one of the Presidential electors.
One of the voters at that election was Joseph Warner, who was
then one hundred years old, and another was Lemuel Gaylord, also
a very aged man, both soldiers of the revolution.
In April, 1843, the question of being attached to Marshall
County was submitted to the legal voters of Sandy Precinct. The
great distance from the County seat, Ottawa, seemed to be the
only argument in favor of the proposition. But it WMS
sufficient, and every vote was cast for the change. Bennington
did the same. There was not then a single inhabitant in the
present towns of Osage or Groveland, in La Salle County.
The next election, after this region had been attached to
Marshall County, in August of that year, was held at the house
of Enoch Dent, the name, "Sandy Precinct," being still retained,
and including then the territory of what is now Evans and
Roberts Townships.
Thomas Judd and William B. Green were elected Justices of the
Peace, and W. T. Dimen and Albert Myers Constables. Among the
well known citizens who voted were John O. Dent, R. E. Dent,
Enoch Dent, Livingston Roberts, Andrew Burns, Thomas Patterson,
Joshua Myers, C. S. Edward. Jervis Gaylord, Albert Myers, David
Stateler, David Myers, George H. Shaw and James Hoyt in all
forty-eight votes.
Sandy Precinct remained intact, consisting of the present towns
of Evans and Roberts, till the adoption of Township organization
in April, 1852. As some evidence of the rapid increase of
population of Illinois, it might be mentioned here that in 1836
we had five electoral votes; in 1844 nine, in 1852 eleven.
| Bureau | Putnam | |
| Stark |
 |
La Salle |
| Peoria | Woodford |
