Peoria County, Illinois Genealogy Trails

"In the Good Old Way - Christmas Day at Princeville"
The Wonderful Tree in the Methodist Church, the turkey shoot in Old Man Tracey's Woods, and the Dance in Hitchcock's Hall.
By Paul Hull
(Special to the Chicago Daily News)

Princeville, IL December 26, 1877. - The village butcher, John Hammer, might have been seen the day before yesterday struggling through the snow in the direction of the Methodist church, carrying a smile and a sack of flour. The smile was in behalf of humanity; the sack of flour was in behalf of one of the two poor families in the village. The sack was adorned on one side with a beautiful blue moon and a green star, and was destined to be one of the bright ornaments on the village Christmas tree. Perhaps nowhere else in the world does the custom prevail of hanging sacks of flour on Christmas trees, but nothing is impossible in Princeville. There is but one Christmas tree in Princeville and it is common property.

About a week ago our Methodist minister shouldered his ax and went to the woods. He cut a straight hickory tree six inches thick at
the base. He lopped the branches off smoothly and made the piece twenty feet long. This timber was hauled to town on a sled. With a carpenter's auger many holes were bored into it and into these holes were driven straight poles of variable lengths. Thus a symmetrical tree was erected, bearing more branches than ever tree grew.
On Tuesday all the village maidens gathered at the church and with sprigs of evergreen and bits of bright colored paper converted the tree from a dull mass of wood to a thing of beauty. Tallow candles were also hung liberally upon its branches. The candles were held in place by a novel tin holder, invented and donated by Oliver Slane, the tinner.

On Wednesday the 509 inhabitants of the village carried to the church the presents intended for their friends. Everything was hung on the tree, from the rubber rattle for Charlie Fast's baby to the washtub and wringer presented by some charitable ladies to old Mrs. Marley. When the church doors were thrown open on Christmas eve, the 509 inhabitants thronged in and viewed the tree with more or less satisfaction. It was conceded to be fully as beautiful and as heavily laden as the one of last
year. The minister's daughter sang, accompanying herself upon the organ. The minister then delivered a long prayer, after which he appointed John Bliss and Byron Wear to take the presents from the tree, which operation was performed with pitchforks, borrowed for the occasion from the hardware store. John McGinnis was called on to read the names written on the parcels. John has performed this duty for years past, the insinuating cadence of his voice being well adapted to the purpose. There was much speculation as to who would be the recipient of the first article as it was being lifted from the tree. A hush fell upon the
audience as Mr. McGinnis adjusted his eye glasses. During this silence the attention of the audience was for a month directed to Charlie Fast, who, in an audible whisper, requested Ida to hold the baby a minute while he got a chew of tobacco.
And thus Princeville received it's Christmas presents, and if every heart within the little church was not made glad the sorrowing ones were not expressed among the happy faced that came forth into the night when the last present had been received.
But there was another duty that claimed the attention of the citizens during Wednesday.

There was a "turkey shoot" down in old man Tracey's woods. The "turkey shoot" hardly deserved its name for those of
the contestants in the sport who brought home turkeys "shot" them by their skill at "seven up" or "pedro". To be sure the "turkey shoot" began well, but it came to a sudden close, and resulted in the projector of the sport getting severely thrashed by the irate marksmen. In a wooden box thirty feet from the scratch the turkey was placed, it's hear appearing through a hole in the top of the box. Six contestants then made up a pool of $1.50 as compensation to the proprietor of the turkey. The order of shots was then decided by lot, and he was owner of the bird who killed it.

The first party of gentlemen who shot at the turkey did so with growing amazement. They made up four pools for the owner of the bird, and fired four times each, and still the turkey's head appeared above the box. Then Fred Beach looked suspiciously at the gentleman with $6 in his pocket as the price of one turkey; Vaughn Williams rubbed his spectacles and 'lowed it was "tarnal curus," and Jim Rice swore by his Blue Bull filly that there was "sumpin wrong bout that 'air bird." Then Fred Beach held the owner of the turkey while Jim Rice examined the fowl, which he found to be dead, with a wire run up through its neck to hold it's head straight. It is said that the owner of the turkey did not attend the dance at Hitchcock's hall on Christmas Eve.

This dance was as it always is, a success. There was in attendance a large representation of the Spoon river gentry, without those presence any social event in Princeville would lack flavor. There is a freedom of action and a charming disregard of stiff social forms
about the gentleman from Spoon river that makes his presence almost indispensable at a Princeville soiree. The only happening of the
occasion worthy of mention was the appearance in the ball room of Roy Wear in a dress coat. When his friends had ceased admiring him he repaired to the livery stable and changed his clothes, presenting the stable boy with the dress coat, minus the "pigeon" tail. another pleasing feature of the ball was the revival of some of the old time figures in dancing, the favorite quadrille of the evening being that one wherein the caller sings:

The first lady give the right hand 'cross
Mind you keep your step in time.
Swing right back, Don't be slack
Join your hand and balance in a line.

But the Christmas dawn approaches; the fiddlers' arms grow weary, and tired eyes demand sleep. The farmer's boy, bidding his friends goodnight, walks slowly home along the country lane. The moon, swinging from the rim of a silver cloud, hangs low in the west and casts it's phosphorescent glitter on the unbroken fields of snow. The distant dog sends up his dismal cry. The barn-yard fowl, instinctively divining the coming of the dawn, sounds his clear clarion. The huddling quails, surprised by approaching footsteps, peep and flutter along the hedge, while a rabbit, roused from his bed of snow, hops easily across the road, where, startled by the whistle of the farmer's boy, he sits upright and pulsating in the moonlight.

Transcribed & Submitted by Jo A Cohrs
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