Historical Stories - McLean County Illinois Genealogy & History

Mrs. Delilah Mullin-Evans

Teaching the First School

I taught the first school in Blooming Grove and the first in what is now McLean county. It was a subscription school. They talked about a school and said they wanted me to teach it, and John Dawson came to me and I drew up the subscription paper and he took it around. The price was $2.50 for each scholar for the term of about four moths. It began about May 1, 1825, and it was running on when I was married. The next morning after the wedding I began teaching again. I taught in John Dawsons house where David Cox now lives (on S ½ SW ¼ Sec 23). Mr. Dawson had just built a new log cabin and he gave the use of it for the school term and lived on in his old one till school was out.

How many scholars did you have? Well, a good many more than the old settlers book gave me credit for, which said I did not have but three or four scholars at the start. I had a small school, but not as small as that. There were four of my own brothers and sisters, John, Jonah, Louisa and Betsy Mullin, Nathan and William, two of John Hendrixs boys; Henry, Maria and Little John, children of John W. Dawson; Delilah, Cynthia and I think Caroline, of John H. S. Rhodes children; Ebenezer and James, sons of old Ebenezer Rhodes and brothers of John H. S. Rhodes; Betsey ,William Orendorffs daughter, and Wesley and Sophia, children of William Walker. How many is that?

Seventeen, counting Caroline Rhodes, of whom you were not sure.

Well, that is all I can think of.

An Almanac for a Text-Book

What school books did you have? Well, not many. They had Websters spelling book with blue backs. A few had Smith & Smileys Arithmetic, the English Reader and the Introduction to the English Reader, and a few copies of the Columbian Orator, which was used as a school book. We also had Walker's School Dictionary. One boy brought an almanac, having no other book. Geography and grammar I did not teach. We sent to Springfield for the writing paper, which was not ruled, and wrote with good quill pens. If I had as many dollars as I have made goose quill pens, I should have all the money I would care to use in my lifetime. I ruled the paper, set the copy and made the pens.

Well, my husband and I staid [sic] at my fathers for a while. In the fall of 1825 or early winter, Milton Stringfield, a brother of Alfred and son of the parson who married us, had to go to Sangamon county on business, and he got my husband and myself to come to his house in the west end of Blooming Grove and stay with his wife while he went to Sangamon County. We went and staid there all winter.

Bloomington's First Owner

Toward spring my husband began working on his claim where Bloomington now is. Our cabin was built in March, 1826. It was a good large cabin sixteen feet square or sixteen by eighteen, I forget which. It stood between three hundred and four hundred yards west and a little south of where James Allin afterward built his double cabin and kept his store was timber and across the creek upon the high knoll the timber was heavy. Around to the northwest of the cabin, north of that high knoll, was a small, scattered grove or clump and directly north was the little grove standing out by itself, called the Celebrated Grove and the One Mile Grove. The latter name was given it because the distance between it and Bloomington Grove was just one mile. Afterward Mr. Major settled in this grove and it was known as Majors Grove.

How far did your husbands claim extend? I do not know exactly. It was a claim of one hundred and sixty acres and I think our cabin was near the west end. I do not know how far north it run, but think it went north of the knoll where the new court house stands.

How near were your neighbors? We had no near neighbors. Mr. William H. Hodge lived two and one-half miles southeast of us and Milton Stringfield one mile and one-half west of us on the same side of the grove. This was in the spring of 1827. Between that and 1830, while we lived there, William Goodheart, John Canady and another William Evans settled near us. This Mr. Evans took the claim just east of us. He was no relation, however. James Tolliver, John Maxwell and William Maxwell also came into the grove further down toward the old Hodge and Orendorff settlement.

Rattlesnakes & Wolves for Close Neighbors

I remember that the north side of the knoll northeast of our cabin was a little sandy and full of rattlesnakes. The Bloomington court house is on the spot now. I went on it often after my cows, and I hardly ever got back without two or three rattlesnakes hissing at me. Rattlesnakes and wolves were my nearest neighbors and the ones I saw the most of.

here were a good many Indians around in the early days the Kickapoos and Delawares and some Pottawattamies. They came to the settlers to trade for corn, wheat, beans, salt, meat, etc. They were generally peaceful, but I was always afraid of them.

Pioneer Clothing

People, men and women, wore a great deal of home-spun linsey-woolsey for women and sort of jeans for the men. There were some few who wore buckskin, however. I remember seeing Jonathan Thorp and Jesse Egnon coming to church at John Hendrix house with buckskin pants and coonskin caps.

I was at the first Methodist class organized at John Hendrixs house after I was married. I was a member of that class. Parson James Stringfield organized it. I think in that class were John Hendrix and wife, John Dawsons wife and William Walker and wife, who were Presbyterians, but united, and I think also James Latta and wife and myself.

Selling out to Bloomington's Founder

How long did you live there? We lived there till the spring of 1830, when we came on to the Mackinaw on the north side of the timber, west of where Lexington now is.

Whom did you sell out to? To James Allin, but what the price was I do not remember.

Did you know he was buying it for a town site? Yes, sir, that was the understanding. We came up on the Mackinaw on the 28^th day of March, 1830, and lived in a tent for a while till another cabin was built, and we raised a good crop that year. We lived here six years, and then sold out in 1836 and went to Grundy County, Missouri, but I never lost my love for Bloomington Grove. I loved its scenery and its people and often when here on visits would look back till the last tree was out of sight. We lived in Missouri till 1843, then moved to Iowa, and left there for Texas in 1857, where my husband died in 1856. I lived there some years and came back January 20, 1877, traveling alone.

(Mrs. Evans) is seventy-two years of age but very active for her years. She is small, well proportioned and has evidently had a wiry, elastic constitution, capable of great endurance, though with no great amount of muscular power. Her eyes are blue and she wore a black cap over her silvery hair. Her complexion is light and her features regular and in her youthful days she must have been pretty. Her memory of the past is clear and sharp. She rarely hesitates over a date and never over a name, giving proper names in full without difficulty.

NOTE: Mrs. Delilah Mullin-Evans died at Lone Grove, Llano Co., Texas, October 16, 1888.

[Information donated by Norma Fisher. Source: Bloomington Daily Pantagraph, July 4, 1881]

Mrs. Nancy Biggs

My sister taught the first school in the summer of 1825; the next was taught by Dr. Tribue, a Frenchman. He taught in a new log school house, just built, about a mile north from John Hendrixs house. That was in the winter o 1825-6 or 26-7, I am not sure which. William Hodge was the next teacher. Mr. Hodge let us study out loud. He was an old-fashioned teacher. A lot was left out where the light came in and one writing desk was an included slab under it, where the light fell on our paper and we could see. The school house was about eighteen feet square. There were two doors, one on the north and one on the south. The east end was nearly all cut out about six feet high for the fire-place. The chimney was built up outside a frame foundation; was built up to the mantle and from there up where the draught began was of split sticks and clay. They dug down for clay and threw water on it and tramped it with horses or oxen in a pit, then they threw it on a table and mixed cut straw or prairie hay with it to make it stick. Then the builder stood inside the chimney and laid on a round of split sticks and then daubed mortar on both sides like plaster. It would stick pretty well, especially on the inside.

The scholars, boys and girls, thought it big sport to roll logs into the door and up to the fireplace. We used to roll back logs that were two or three feet through and six feet long for the fireplace was extra wide. A big black log of green elm would last a week or two and it was not an every day occurrence to have a spree rolling in a back log. The fire kept all right from night till morning and over Sunday.

At the schools taught by Dr. Tribue and William Hodge we studied reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic. If we could not get those quills to make pens of, we used turkey quills. We made our own ink by boiling water maple bark down, straining it off and adding a little sugar and copperas. It made splendid black ink.

[Information donated by Norma Fisher. Source: Bloomington Daily Pantagraph, July 4, 1881]