t ^! F 64-1 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Pages from the early history of the West 3 1924 028 846 950 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028846950 PAGES FKOM THE EARLY HISTORY WEST AND NORTH-WEST: EMBRACtNO REMINISCENCES AND INCIDENTS OF SETTLEMENT AND GROWTH, AND SKETCHES OF THE MATERIAL AND RELIGIOUS PROGRESS STATES OF OHIO, INDIANA, ILLINOIS, AND MISSOURI, ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE HISTORY OF METHODISM. REV. S. R. BEGGS. CINCINNATI: PRINTED AT THB METHODIST BOOK CONCBKN. 1868. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by S. R. BEGGS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States foi the Southern District of Ohio. SO CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PioB. Autobiographical—^Ancestry—Life in Southern Indiana—Con- version , ;. 9 CHAPTER II. Early Methodism in Indiana—Notable Preachers—Confer- ences—Districts and Circuits 17 CHAPTER ni. Compilations from Smith's "Indiana Miscellany" 31 CHAPTER IV. The Same continued—^The Pious Wife and Impenitent Hus- band—^Remarkable Conversion 44 CHAPTER V. Received into Missouri Conference—Remarkable Experiences in the Primitive Itinerancy 51 CHAPTER VI. Introduction to the Illinois Work—Minutes of the First Con- ference 59 CHAPTER VII. Pioneer Experiences—Home Again—^Pleasant Conference Occa- sions 6^ CHAPTER VIII. Quakers and Infidels at a Methodist Meeting—^A Primitive Baptism 75 4 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. Paoe. Marriage—Eough Ezperiences of a Young Bride—Painful and Perilous Journey ings 81 CHAPTER X Mission Work in Chicago, 1831-32—Terrors of an Indian Raid—A Home-Made Fort...; 94 CHAPTER XI. Privations in Chicago—Division of Illinois Conference—Inci- dents of Labor 103 CHAPTER Xn. A Clear Conversion—Statistics of Desplalnes Mission—Rock River Conference formed 114 CHAPTER XIII. History of Peoria—A Curious Church-Building Enterprise... 122 CHAPTER XIV. Sketch of Rev. Jesse Walker—Interesting Narrative from his own Manuscript '. 131 CHAPTER XV. Statistics of Early Methodism in the Fox River Region—^Au- rora and Ottowa 143 CHAPTER XVI. Early Methodism in Middle Illinois—Sangamon County First Settlement of Peoria 151 CHAPTER XVII. Miscellaneous Statistics—The Plainfield Work—How Roberts became Bishop Igl CHAPTER XVIII. Biographical Episode—The Author's Work and Experiences on the Christian Commission, in 1864 Igg — CONTENTS. 5 CHAPTER XIX. Paoe. Chicago Methodism—Great Religious Struggle aud Victory.... 175 CHAPTER XX. The First Chicago Churches—Canal-Street, Clark-Street, and Indiana-Street 182 CHAPTER XXI. The Chicago Indian Massacre of 1812—Mrs. Einzie's Narrative 191 CHAPTER XXH. Mrs. Kinzie's Narrative continued 200 CHAPTER XXm. The Author's Observations on the Indian Character—Causes of the Sauk War 213 CHAPTER XXIV. Indian Anecdotes—How Jesse Walker dealt with them 221 CHAPTER XXV. Chicago—Origin of Name—Incidents of Early Settlement First Methodist Preaching 227 CHAPTER XXVI. Our Publishing Interests—The Methodist Book Concerns in New York and Cincinnati 236 CHAPTER XXVII. First Baptist Church in Plainfield—Methodism in Plainfield.. 241 CHAPTER XXVIII. A Sketch of Methodism in Lockport 249 CHAPTER XXIX. History of the Illinois and Michigan Canal—A Great Under- taking under Great Difficulties 260 — 6 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXX. Page. A Sketch of the Conversion and Ministry of Eev. John Hill^- Extraordinary Effects of his Preaching 268 CHAPTER XXXI. Anecdotes of Bishops Roberts and Soule—Singular Incident— Slietehes of Western Methodism 274 CHAPTER XXXII. Western Methodism — James B. Pinley —KoUey — Bangs M'Keadree 293 CHAPTER XXXIII. Administration of Discipline—Rev. John Sinclair 301 CHAPTER XXXIV. First Session of Rock River Conference 311 CHAPTER XXXV. The Prairie State—Its Beauty, Resources, Population, and Destiny 317 CHAPTER XXXVI. St. Louis in the Olden Time—Its First Newspaper—Progress of Methodism in Illinois 321 INTRODUCTION. BY T. M. EDDY, D. D. Years ago, when the writer first came to the North-West, among his earliest and most hearty greetings was one from Stephen R. Beggs. We found bo pleasant a spirit, so happy a disposition, so cheerful a retrospect that we sought further acquaintance. His experience ran back into pioneer days, swept along the rough places, and wound among the bridle- paths of frontier settlements. So interesting were his reminis- cences that, at our request, he wrote a portion of them, which appeared in successive numbers of the North-Western Christian Advocate. Artless, natural, just, they attracted favorable atten- tion, and called out an expression favorable to publication in a more extended and permanent form. The thought of a book came to him as an amazement. He, Stephen R. Beggs, become the author of a duodecimo volume I He had never thought of entering into history, much less writ- ing it. When he made his way from one appointment to another by blazed trees, and stood up on a puncheon floor and preached in the dim glare of one or two tallow candles, kept alight by the snufSng of backwoods fingers, he would have laughed outright at the prediction that he should ever make a book to be read by the light streaming into richly carpeted parlors from patent gas-burners. Yet why not? These early Methodist pioneers have led an eventful life, and its record is almost as marvelous as any thing 8 INTEODUCTION. in the annala of chivalry, and possesses the glitter of romance They have a knowledge of persons, places, and events essential writ- to a perfect history of our Church in the West, and, unless of no ten, it dies with them. Written, and not printed, it will be service to the future historian. A few years ago autobiographic literature was overdone, and yet the poorest, stalest, and least will enduring had its value, and from such ephemeral annals histoiry be enriched. The author was at the laying of foundations in the North- West, both political and ecclesiastical. He was in Chicago ere it was Chicago. He rocked the cradle of young Methodism here, but, musical as he is, would never sing to it a lullaby. He has told the story as he knew it, and as other careful (Sbservers have recited it He was here among the Indian troubles when Black Hawk was devastating the country, and that, too, is told. He has labored in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri when there was more hard work than pecuniary compensation. With his own experience he has connected anecdotes, sketches, stray waifs of biography, and incidents in danger of being lost. He sends it forth, especially commending it to his old friends, the associates, lay and cleric, of earlier days. There are many yet living, for of tough stock and hardy fiber were those pioneer folks. They will read, and "remember the days of former times." We commend it to younger readers. It is well to see, amid our present, what was the character of our near past. Those days can never come again; changes of population and society make them impossible. The scream of the locomotive has scared the saddle-bags out of sight, and almost out of existence. New duties, new conflicts, new responsibilities are upon us. But let US keep in sympathy with the heroic aggressions, the chivalrous spirit, the daring and doing which made "the paths straight" for our present. E'er this there is nothing like the facts as they were, and some of them the author has told. Office NoBTii-WEBXEaN Chbistia.n Advocate, "I Chicago, April 2S, 1868. J PAGES €arl2 iiskg of % MtBi anb SorfMd. CHAPTER I. •My great-grandfathers were born, the one, James Beggs, in Ireland; the other, Charles Barns, in America, of English extraction. One of my great- grandmothers was born in Ireland, the other in En- gland; the maiden name, of one being Hardy, of the other, M'Dow. My grandfather, Thomas Beggs, was a native of New Jersey, where he married Sarah Barnes, and afterward emigrated to Virginia. He lived in Eockingham county, till the breaking out of the Eevolutionary War. He joined the pa- triot army, and became an officer in the commissary department, and died of camp fever in 1779 or 1780. He had four sons and one daughter. His three oldest sons had large families—that of John consisting of one son, James, and eight daughters. James had four sons—Charles, John, Stephen, and Thomas. John married Hannah Barnes; James married Mary Custer; and Charles married Dorothy Trumbow. ; 10 EAELY HISTORY OF THE All settled at an early day in Olark county, Indiana. John Beggs was Judge of the Court; James was State Senator for nine years, joining the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1791; Charles was a member of the Legislature for several years, and served as Captain of a light-horse company in the Indian War, participating in the battle of Tippecanoe. ,He moved to Illinois in 1829. He still lives, at the advanced age of ninety-two ; and during the Eebellion was as bitter against the " Tories," as he termed the rebels, as his family had been, in '76. My father and moth- er, James Beggs and Mary Custer, were members of the -Methodist Church from 1791 to the day of their death, a period of three-fourths of a century; and if I am an ultra Methodist, I came honestly by it. I was born in Eockingham county, Virginia, March 30, 1801. When I was four years old, my father moved West, stopping about two years in Kentucky and then settling in Clark county, Indiana, on the Ohio Eiver, about seventeen miles above the falls at Louisville, where my father passed the rest of his life.