PULASKI SCOVIL
Page 198

The subject of this sketch removed from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Warren county, Illinois, in 1834, and in Mason county in 1836, and is consequently one of the very earliest residents not only of Central Illinois, but also of Mason county, with whose interests he has been so largely identified. He was at the city of Canton the day following its destruction by a hurricane, in 1834. This region of Illinois was then a hunting ground for the Indians. The sign of the milliner and dressmaker was not on every cross-street. The resources of the country were varied. There was a large proportion of deer and Indian, and very little white man. These original old settlers of Illinois knew what good brandy was as well as though each were proprietor of a wholesale liquor store. Little did they dream that in forty years the most of them would still be living, in affluence and wealth, and where the deer roamed unmolested would be traversed by the iron horse, and as far as the eye could reach a vast sea of growing corn and yellowing grain would form the landscape, dotted with grove and orchard, and the homes of contented prosperity. Household goods were landed from the steamer or emigrant wagon, and the men bossed the job of building a cabin. One principle was that the poor Indian had no rights that the white pioneer was bound to respect. There were a few of the old settlers who died off, but for each several pairs of twins would be born, and the population increased as rapidly from emigration as from natural increase. The Indians did not wear as good clothes as the average white settler, and there was a jealousy; but we have no record of the white man putting on style over the Indian, as is common between classes of the present inhabitants. Little misunderstandings sometimes grew up between the first settlers and the Indians, but these had their redeeming features. They kept the women from gadding about the neighborhood, and it kept the men at home at night. One of the objects of this work is that the recollections of the "long ago" be revived; that these primitive times be lived over again in imagination; that old men and women call up reminiscences of pioneer history and early times. But we digress. Mr. Scovil bought sixteen quarter sections of land on the military tract, paying for them with land warrants of the soldiers of 1812. The Indians of that region were the Sacs, of Iowa, who were trading and hunting between the Illinois and the Mississippi rivers. He was one of the twelve voters in Havana precinct, a copy of the poll-book of which is given on another page, and was the contemporary here with Ross, Krebaum, Rockwell, Kemp, Andrus, Foster and Low, and others referred to in this work. He bought at one time eight quarter sections of O. M. Ross. It was mostly prairie, and no timber; was very much chagrined and desired to exchange for timber. Ross proposed to him to exchange timber land therefore at an advance price. He had a box of jewelry and watches with him (he had been engaged in the manufacture of these in the east,) which Ross proposed to exchange land for. They made the trade. Mr. Scovil considered that Ross had overreached him in the sale of the prairie land, determined to get even, so he billed the watches and jewelry to him at double their value, and bought eight more quarter sections, paying thereon but one hundred in money. They went to Lewistown in a boat, got the titles arranged, and returned. During the first two years he sent to Cincinnati for all provisions except the corn meal, which was manufactured at Beardstown. The first corn he could buy in Havana was one thousand bushels from a Mr. Reese, where Virginia now is, and then twelve hundred bushels from James Walker, at Walker's Grove. He raised his first corn on the farm now owned and occupied by Ruben Henninger, east of Havana. He tried to sell it in Havana. He could get ten cents a bushel in dry goods, but no money nor groceries; consequently did not sell, but gave to the early settlers in the neighborhood to gather and haul away. Among those thus benefited were Ruben Henninger, Sr., whose son now owns the farm then owned and occupied by Mr. Scovil. His fine peach crop was disposed of in the same way. The first business engaged in was a steam saw-mill with Frank Low, the deputy sheriff, when this was a part of Tazewell county, and the first sheriff of Mason county, and at this time President of the First National Bank of Havana. They finished building the mill, Mr. Scovil furnishing means far beyond his expectations. He ultimately bought out the interest of Mr. Low, and run it in his own exclusive interest. William Krebaum, then a young man, was in the employ of Low & Scovil, in the mill, and is still a resident of Havana. About this time he took a contract to furnish a thousand dollars worth of timbers for the Meredosia and Jacksonville Railroad, then in contemplation, the first in the State. The mill machinery not being heavy enough, it was run with loss; consequently, new machinery became a necessity, which he went to St. Louis and purchased, after which the mill was run with profit instead of loss. He then undertook heavy contracts for timbers for building purposes in the city of St. Louis. This was in the year 1840 and 1841, when Mason county was set off from Tazewell and Sangamon. Mr. Scovil, Judge Rockwell, and others, were signers of the bond to build the Havana court house. Mr. Scovil was furnishing the timber. Bath did not want a court house at Havana, and late one night, after a hot discussion on the county seat question, the mill burned down. It stood on ground where the Brown warehouse now stands. When he left the farm east of Havana, he removed to Waterford, Fulton county, and run a mill there for some years. In 1854, he settled where his present beautiful home now is. Mr. Scovil was born in Harwington, Litchfield county, Conn., in 1808; went to Geneva, New York, and engaged in business, and in six years thereafter to Cincinnati, and engaged in silversmithing, and was remarkably successful. He started the first manufacturing shop in that city in 1832, and his successors are still in the same business in that place. He has always been so fully and constantly immersed in business that he has refused all official positions. His pleasant home is near Teheran, in town 20, range six. He has rafted logs and lumber on the Illinois river when the bars were so covered with grass that he was compelled to wade in the water to his arm-pits to clear away the grass so that his raft could pass over. He was first married in New York in 1832, to Sarah Jerome; had six children. She died in 1839. His second marriage was to Olive Cross, in 1841; had two children, both of whom died in infancy. She died in 1844. The third marriage was in 1846, to Anna Boardwine. Troubles intervened and they were divorced. She is still living. Had by this marriage one son, Frank Scovil, who made a good record as a soldier in the late war. With this third wife he lived seven years. The fourth marriage was with Mrs. Caroline Scovil, widow of Julius Scovil, a brother of our subject. She had four children by her former marriage. These were cared for most tenderly by Pulaski, their uncle and now stepfather. This marriage occurred in 1854. The fifth marriage was in 1862, to Hannah Jones, of Mason county. They have five children, a most happy and interesting family, models of neatness, propriety and kindness. In the relation of all these vicissitudes, these ups and downs, these profits and losses, these deaths and separations, Mr. Scovil has no word of blame or censure for any living creature; no harsh word for any who has done him wrong, but "charity to all and malice toward none," is exemplified in his words and in his daily life. He is advanced in years, but active and in good health, and happy, but we cannot imagine that any man could be otherwise surrounded by the fields and groves that lie adjacent to his residence, which is very nicely situated on one of our beautiful prairie elevations, near a splendid grove of native forest trees.

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