of Menard and Mason Counties
By T.G. Onstott
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CHAPTER XLI Page 379 The ancient village that stood on the bluffs of the Illinois river on the dividing line between Mason and Tazewell counties, one so full of life and traffic, the emporium of trade, has gone the way of all the earth like the ancient Babylon or Salem, and exists only in the memory of the old inhabitants. I first saw the village in 1852. There was a sawmill in the bottoms on the stream that ran from the pike holes to the river. There was a warehouse on the river kept by a man by the name of Conant in which the grain was hauled when the river was low and the roads were good. Perhaps 100,000 tons of corn and wheat were marketed from Spring Lake. It drained the grain from Egypt on the east, from Mackinaw on the north, from Red Oak and Crane Lake on the south. The wheat was hauled in sacks furnished by the grain merchants and the corn was in gunny sacks. Grain from the west came from Tight Row and Devils Neck. More than half of the grain was hauled with ox teams. The roads were very sandy and fifty bushels was a great load for two or three yoke of oxen and it took a day to make a trip. Of course the teamster would hook a load of wood as he returned home which was very plenty after the cyclones had cut wide swaths through the Long Point lumber. A warehouse had been started at Spring Lake by Pratt & Moore under the hill and a Tobogan slide had been built from the top of the hill down to it of plank three feet wide with sideboards. A gunny sack would be started down at an angle of forty-five degrees. A boy would ride the sacks of corn down the slide into the warehouse at railroad speed. It was fun for the boy, but dangerous. As the slide had several turns to make, and sometimes the boy and sack would jump the track and land outside the warehouse. There were three expert ox drivers, Lige Davis, Frank Pemberton and John Maloney. Each had his peculiar ways of making an ox pull a load and those who had to make a choice between the three would give the preference to Lige who had a whip with a lash ten feet long and a stock of corresponding length and a good buckskin cracker. Lige would make the head steer toe the mark or make the tongue steers hold the whole team come to a halt, but with the war of the rebellion an ox was worth more for beef than for work and they went out of date. Frank Pemberton died in the fifties, John Maloney moved away. Lige Davis served three years in the war of the rebellion and is still alive and healthy. Having disposed of the ox drivers we come down to the inhabitants of Durang. Bob Jones and his brother Joe kept a trading house when we first knew the place and lived in the town until they started for Pike's Peak or bust and with them S.T. Walker and Jack Rankin. They went with an ox team. S.T. Walker can sometimes be coaxed to tell of some of the incidents of the trip. They never saw the Peak as the further they went the more people they met coming back. The Jones' stayed west. S.T. Walker, who is now our efficient postmaster came back. Mosteler and Brown succeeded Pratt & Co., and for several years did a large business both in grain and goods. They would go to St. Louis once a year and buy large stocks of goods and sell them on long credit and take the farmer's corn and wheat in payment. James Brown, I think is dead. G.S. Mosteler lives in Pittsburg, Kansas. Moseler served in the Mexican war and of course is an old man. I saw him a few years ago. He is still in his prime and bids fair to live many years yet. Andrew Pollard flourished for several yeas as a merchant. Andy was a genial man, who would sell a man's goods for six months then sue him on the old bill, get a judgment then start a new account and invite the man to dinner with him. While Andy kept store in the upper story, the cellar was run on a different basis. Gambling tables were run at full speed. There were holes in the floor and the drinkers orgies could be heard at all times. Many were the combats that transpired in the basement. Andy's wife was Phoebe Hughton whom he married in Menard. She was a fine woman though slow of speech. Andy would prove everything by Phoebe. "Ain't that so Phoebe?" he would say every few minutes. Pollard raised a company and made a good record in the war of the rebellion and afterward settled in Manito, where he died twenty years ago. Bill Trent was another man who did business at Spring Lake. He was a great trader, while he dealt in notes which he traded for horses, cattle, sheep and hogs. He would start out for a trading tour taking Fred Westfall with him and perhaps with a hundred notes from twenty to a hundred dollars each, though he could not read a word. He had some way he could pick out a note he wanted, but he finally traded for a stock of goods of Tackenburg of Pekin. Trent owned a farm near Forest City which was all sand, Tackenburg was coming down to see it, but Trent got him to wait till a big snow covered it all over and then sent word for him to "come." Tackenburg thought it very nice rolling land and the trade was made. He did not stay in the store much. Every person in Spring Lake clerked for him. He bought grain and called everybody Bud. He would meet a person and say, "Bud, I am going down to St. Louis and thus bring up lots of gold." Trent had two boys, Press and Aleck, whom he determined to educate. So he fixed them up with new suits and a gold watch and took them to Peoria. The next day the boys came back to Spring Lake having gone through college. The doctors were Dr. Camp, Dr. E.Y. Nichols and J.W. Neal. Nichols kept the best of horses and was very attentive to his patients. Dr. Neal married a Rankin and left about the time of the war. There was a saloon built on the line between Tazewell and Mason so if an officer came from Tazewell the keeper would step on the Mason side and if from Mason would just walk on the other side. The farmer living close was John Williams, who had about twenty families to support, he was a horse trader and every person who wanted to buy or sell anything had to go and see John Williams. Pollard Anno bought out Williams and built one of the finest houses in Mason county. Thos. Landes lived near town. He had a rough exterior but a kind heart and hated all put on politeness. One day he rode to Pekin with Green Pemberton. A dude of a clerk came up rubbing his hands and bowing and scraping and said in French style, "What can I do for you Mr. Landes?" "Go sit down and mind your business, when I want anything I will ask for it," said Landes. The clerk wilted. James Adams lived near by and was always in town. James Moore, the father of Bob Moore, lived east of town on a farm he bought of Slicky Bill Green. Among the early settlers of Spring Lake were: Nellie Rankin, Joe Jones, Bob, and Jack Paine, Ash Duncan, Isaac M. Hamer, Kush Layton, Andy Pollard, Wm. Combs, Jerry Miller, W.W. Stewart, Wm. Trent, Geo. Maltby, Joe Gregory, Alex. Trent, Jason Matheney, S.T. Walker and Jack Walker. Conant & Jones were merchants up to 1853; Pratt & Moore to 1855; Mosteler & Brown to 1857; Pollard & Walker to 1857; Randolph & Co. to 1858; Smith Mosher to 1857; Wm. Trent and Rutenberg & Rankin, '56 to '68. Spring Lake is now a desolate waste; only a few cellars that Time has failed to fill with drifting land marks. The places once so busy with trade and traffic are now relegated to oblivion. The advent of Egypt station, Manito and Forest City sealed the fate of Spring Lake. So Spring Lake is only used as a fishing headquarters.
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