Condensation of Memory Sketch by James Walker Leverett

Condensation of Memory Sketch by James Walker Leverett

I was born at Livermore, Maine, on the East side of the Androscoggin River November 19, 1830. This statement I make fearlessly by reason of the good reputation of my parents for veracity, who recorded the fact, though I was present at the time but failed to make note of the event.

My first retained exploit was climbing a few steps up a ladder in front of a light red cow in the stable and then seeing the cow, commenced a vociferous entertainment for the animal which brought my mother on the run to see what was up, and discovering that it was I, caught me down with a motion as if to throw me upon the cow’s horns. This was when I was dressed in such clothes as small girls are usually dressed in, when under three years old.

When nearly 4 years old, mother dressed William and I in spick and span new clothes, calf-skin boots and caps with tassels, and giving Uncle John Turner, a boy 14 years old, charge of us allowed him to row us across the Androscoggin River to visit Aunt Walker. When part of the way across, the skiff ran aground so Uncle John coolly pulled off his shoes and socks, rolled up his pants and got out and managed to lift and shove the boat free and got aboard, much to the relief of the passengers who were frightened at the mishap.

A few days later our parents, Uncle Joseph Turner and family and Mr. Mitchell’s family and Grandfather’s family with Uncle John as driver and Aunt Ann and Grandfather in the one horse chaise started for Illinois overland by way of Boston. While in Boston several of us youngsters went up the steps of the State house to the top where there was a chance to see what a big thing this planet is. While visiting with Grandma Griggs I ate some blueberries and became sick for awhile, grandma consoled me with the statement that I would feel better before long, and her smiling face is still impressed on memory.

Our Aunt, relict of Thomas Leverett gave Brother William and I each a pair of slippers which had belonged to her children, deceased. Thomas, the youngest of the Leverett boys died young, leaving no male offspring. (George and John Griggs were by a second marriage with our Grandmother Leverett whose maiden name was Lydia Fuller).

On our departure for Illinois, as we neared the ridge of the Allegany Mts, the older boys were allowed to walk to lighten the loads.

Here memory skips to our crossing the Hudson River. While waiting on shore our horses –

Bet, a bay with docked tail and Salome, a sorrel not docked, did some considerable pawing on a stand which I thought unnecessary. When on the boat, we noticed that the motive force was given by a blind horse performing his work in a circle. In Ohio, I think it was, the Racker attached to the chaise stumbled down, sending Grandmother and Aunt Ann on the side and to the ground. Grandmother was hurt some by the fall. While going through Indiana, one of the horses on Uncle John’s team was foundered and was traded for a 4 year old colt.

In Indiana Father took his shot gun and went hunting squirrels, coming back with a black squirrel and a gray one.

After the squirrel hunt nothing stuck in memory until our arrival at the temporary home of Uncle Edward Turner near Jacob Sharp’s residence, 12 miles east of Quincy, Illinois on the 28^th of October, 1834, one day before brother Eben’s birthday. The fire arms of the train were then discharged and the women had a warm welcome. I wondered why they should cry as I felt more like laughing.

Later the Leveretts settled in Quincy in a cabin owned by Uncle Edward Turner between Fifth and Sixth Streets fronting on Main. Grandfather and his family moved into a cabin on his farm in Ellington Tp. 9 miles north of Quincy and Uncle Joseph and his family into a cabin on land adjoining.

The Mitchells went to Bond Co. Ill., but two yr. later came back and settled in Livingston school district 2 mi. from schoolhouse.

3 weeks after arriving in Quincy the team which had so faithfully drawn the family 1600 miles, died of colic and the wagon which was constructed with leather thorobraces was sold and used for a hack or buss in the city.

The 11^th of Feb. 1835 Sister Ellen was born. About a week later Mother and all the children had the measles, Ellen having only one measle which seemed to be an effectual stop to contagion all her life. Aunt Josephine was the nurse and all pulled through in good shape. The next spring we moved to a cabin on Grandfather’s farm about 20 feet from the one Grandfather’s family lived in, and Father worked at carpenter work, using a shop on Uncle Joseph’s farm, which was afterwards used by Sam Bunker for a Shoemaker’s shop.

Father built a brick machine with a rotary mud mixer worked by horse power which was used for working a kiln of brick for Uncle Joseph and Grandfather. The small boys helped by making marbles which we duly burned with the brick and used in good time. A man came by and ordered 2 machines of the same pattern. Father built them but never got sight of the one who ordered them, so he lost $25 and a month’s time. Later father and Uncle Eben made basswood chair bottoms and sold them, some doing duty for 20 years.

Father traded a city lot in Columbus for an old horse which did one summer’s work on the farm and in the fall slipped down on the ice and never got up again. In the fall when I was about 5 years old, William and I went to the woods west of Grandfather’s farm to pick up black walnuts. When we had filled our baskets, a boy about 16 years old came along on a horse with a sack and said he would pay us to pick some for him, so we put what we had into his sack and we picked enough to fill it. He told us to pick more, and put them beside a tree while he took the ones in the sack home. When he came back he said his father would pay the biggest boy six bits and the little one four bits to pick up walnuts. We picked until he made several trips home, probably ten bushels. He then told us we had done so well that his father would do better by us, he would let us have a lot of flat small stones which were lying around, which if put in the fire would come out dollars, and proceeded to put all we could carry in our basket. We started off with our wealth and got about a quarter of a mile toward home when we met Mother coming to see what kept us so late.

Of course we told her of our good fortune. It would have done an artist a nice thing to have caught Mother’s expression when she emptied the basket. Probably the check manifested by that boy has had more influence over my financial career than any other object lesson. To this day whenever anyone offers a grand chance to make big money by a small investment, that basket of stones comes to view.

This same year commenced our book education. Miss Whitney taught school in the Methodist Church near the Turner farms. This lady pointed out the letters of the alphabet with a small pen knife and to the rules of the school with a birch stick. After our move to the farm, we were taught by Parris Judy, a Kentukian, in a log school house about two miles from us. A log was left out on one side for light. The inside was furnished with a broad board fastened to the wall, slanted a little for a writing desk, and a bench for a seat made from a slate or hewed from a split log. Benches made of slabs furnished other seating. The studying was loud, reading louder and the spelling fortissimo.

Our next school was taught by Mrs. Mitchell in her own home. Next we attended a private school taught in the upper story of our house by Mrs. Jo Cater, she and her husband at that time living in the room. After that, Mr. Parker Goding, a Maine man, taught two winters in the Sharp schoolhouse, followed next winter by Cyrus Mitchell. Free schools supported by taxation were then being discussed. Up to this time, schools in Illinois were run on the subscription plan, the school district furnishing the house and the teacher getting his pay by subscription of so much per pupil, doing his own collecting and usually boarding around. Mr. Otis Thompson, a Maine man, next taught in the upper room of our house. The next year a new schoolhouse was built on our farm by subscription, the Free School proposition not having yet been a success. Otis Thompson was the first teacher in the new house, and Wickliffe Price, a young man 19 years old, J. P. Emery then succeeded him for 2 winters.

The summer schools were taught by women, Adaline Newhall, Miss Walls, Amanda James, Kate Lemen and others. During this time, the Mexican War and the movement of the Mormons toward Utah occurred, awaking the people to quite an extent. There were no recruits for the Mexican War in our immediate neighborhood, but the merits of the war were carried by the politicians of the day.

The association of Joseph Smith, the Mormon leader, in the Carthage jail in 1845 made quite a stir in our county. Some outside our neighborhood, knowing that Mormon settlers were well armed, appointed a committee to learn the sentiment of the neighborhood and it was decided that the committee should peaceably ask the Mormons to surrender their arms, which the Mormons willingly did, being assured that they should have them returned as soon as the excitement was over or that they gave satisfactory evidence of their good will towards their neighbors. The Mormons quietly moved away in 1847 after the first movement which went into winter quarters near Council Bluffs, Iowa. Though stripped of most everything at Kirksville, Missouri, most of them saved a fair outfit for their journey across the plains. This educational and political history has left some other things in the background.

During the spring of 1836 we were moved from the Turner neighborhood to Wiggles prairie and what was afterwards called the Livingston School District. Father had bought a log cabin which had by mistake been put on his side of the quarter line, giving a black cow and $5 in cash for it. In this the summer was passed while the new house was being constructed, and later was taken down and placed near the new house and was used for a carpenter and cabinet maker shop, Father being the carpenter and Caleb Foster, a piano maker, the Cabinet maker.

The new house was built by Father and Uncle Edward Turner, its size being 23 by 24 feet, having one room 16 X 16 for living room, two bedrooms 8 X 12 each, a small wash room and pantry. This lower part was plastered one coat before moving into the house, also the sides of the upper part, which was rented first by Mr. Thompson and family for one winter, and by Jo Cate the next winter. Later P. N. Grover lived there several months while improving land bought of Grandfather Turner joining the land bought by Mr. Cate. This renting I think was not particularly for revenue but to accommodate old friends from Maine.

The second year after moving to the farm Father bought a yoke of oxen and used them one season on the farm, but during the winter old Broad died, leaving Lion matchless. Next year he traded the sorrel colt, a yearling heifer, and a watch for a 3-year-old mare, and he traded 3 steers for a mate to the horse, so had a team, a yoke of oxen, old Jack and Duke and a cart which did general service, going to meeting occasionally until the double wagon was secured.

We used the oxen and horses together plowing and some other work. When I was about 9 years old I was the teamster and found it easier to ride old Jack than to walk, so it became a regular thing.

An Irishman asked me who I was going to vote for. I told him for Harrison, as he was the best man. “No,” he said, “Harrison is a rascal, Van Buren is the man to vote for.” I refused to argue the merits of the candidates as he seemed obtuse and also much larger than I.

Not long after getting the horse team, neighbor Amos Jackson came and borrowed the team to go to Quincy, and soon after he had gone, word came that Grandfather Turner had been thrown from the buggy and had broken a shoulder and perhaps had been otherwise injured, so Father hurried off and borrowed a neighbor’s horse. IN the meantime a prairie fire made a rapid move towards the buildings and Father came on the run and hung the bridle reins over a post, caught a hoe and got a fire brand and set a head fire, and soon had the premeses safe.

During the same year another accident adds to our youthful history. John Stevenson and his sister Lucy Ann were riding in a buggy, the ground being very rough from frost, and when coming down the hill on a road to the East of the house a bolt jarred out of the shaft, letting it down on the horse’s heels, and causing her to jump so suddenly as to upset the buggy, throwing the girl on her face upon the frozen clods, knocking out several teeth and bruising her otherwise. The horse came up to our house with the shafts, and soon we saw John and his sister coming on foot. She was not able to go on that night.

Having pretty much outgrown the Livingston school, William and I went to Shurtleff College during the winter of 1848 and 1849. We remained at home during the summer of 1849 and returned in the fall of 1849 and continued in school until my Junior year, when being the only one left in my class, I went to Madison University, N.Y. finishing the college course in 1855. Brother William not being able to continue his course that year, went to Maine and Massachusetts with Father in 1853, but continued his course in 1854 and died of cholera at home July 3, 1854.

In the spring of 1855, a Colony was made up at Quincy and vicinity to settle in Nebraska on the Elkhorn River about 50 mi. from Omaha, the place selected was called Fontanelle in honor of an Indian chief of that name, who by the way, was killed during the summer, I think by an Indian.

Uncle Edward and I joined the colony and crossed Iowa to Council Bluffs by stage. Several of the colonists went on a boat which had been bought for a ferry boat at Omaha but was snagged about 2 mi. below Omaha and I think was allowed to stay when it was sunk. After reaching Council Bluffs we remained over Sunday with a W. Quincy family living in a small house or near what is now Bayliss Park. Monday morning we crossed over to Omaha which was then about a year old. We then went to Bellevue and saw the Indian missionary, later crossed to the Iowa side and visited Col. Sarpy.

The next day we returned to Omaha and took the old Mormon Trail for the West. We went through Elkhorn City to Fontanelle, where we remained for about a week and helped chain out the town. I had expected to teach in the college which was to be built there, but found only one child likely to need a teacher, so returned to Quincy.

Father sold the farm in Livingston the next summer, and I made a horseback ride of about 500 miles looking for land and a chance to teach, but was unsuccessful so remained on the farm. Then we moved to Denmark, Iowa. On Thanksgiving Day, after attending the marriage of cousin Carrie Turner to Mr. Keith I went to Burlington and took the train for Warren, Ill. where I went to Tisdels.

We finished the basement of the Baptist Church for a school room, and started the Warren Academy Jan. 3, 1856 with about 50 students who made very satisfactory progress. The summer school was taught by Miss H. M. Tisdel, while I went to Denmark, Iowa, and worked at carpenter jobs to raise money enough to run the winter school. Before commencing the winter school Miss Tisdel and myself were married and ran the school in partnership for 6 months. However, it was not a success financially, and we closed the school.

In the spring of 1859 Messrs. Tisdel, Washburn and Leverett decided to start for Pikes Peake with a saw mill, but gave it up and built houses in Salem, Nebraska. We brought the family there in 1863. I worked in the Bothy & Co. Planing Mill until harvest and at harvesting and threshing until near winter, then hauled wood from the Lattice bridge, Wis. making about $1 a day above cost of wood.

Horace Woodworth interested me in the Academy again, and I consented to run the higher department for $1 per day and let him have all he could make above that sum. That was my most profitable teaching in Warren Academy.

In the spring of 1864 we returned to Nebraska, I driving a horse team and Hattie and the children going by Hannibal and St. Jo RR and steamboat. We reached Salem safe and sound.

In the fall of 1864 we concluded to sell out and seek a home where there was less disturbance than on the Missouri border. We returned to Hannibal and St. Jo. to Quincy and thence to Warren safely, having on our persons $1800 in currency. The following day our household effects were examined by Bill Anderson and his Guerilla band and about $225 worth extracted. But we felt better satisfied than if they had interfered the day before.

After a year in the U.S. Service mostly in Mississippi and Ala., I ran the literary part of the Warren Sentinel with fair success. In the spring of 1867 we moved to Hillboro, Wis. being engaged general merchandising with J.W. Parker., then to a farm in Garden Valley, Wisc. for 10 years. Then we moved to Black River Falls, county seat of Jackson Co. Wisc. remaining there 2 years.

IN the spring of 1882 we went into the lumber business with J.W. Parker and son in Sioux Falls, S. Dak. continuing there 11 years. The Panic of 1893 so affected our finances as to make it best to leave Sioux Falls. We moved to Sabetha, Kansas and engaged in the lumber business with the Slosson Brothers in Sabetha, where we remained 2 ½ years, then moved to Horton, Kansas, engaging in the furniture business which after two years we left and headed for a fruit farm in St. Clair County, Missouri.

We lived in Missouri 6 years, and the children, thinking we were getting old, persuaded us to leave that County, which we did, moving to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Since moving there we have spent 3 winters in California, one in Texas and one in Alabama in the city of Evergreen.

We have thus been most of our lives on the frontier among the first settlers and have contended with the difficulties attending new settlements. It is not unlikely that neighborhood attachments are more abiding in new settlements as most have sundered their early attachments and are willing to sacrifice something to make the new as pleasant as possible.

Contending with the difficulties of a new country also develops a more vigorous manhood than is found were all things already made at hand. Our families might have escaped very many hardships by waiting 8 or 10 years until the financial change, but perhaps the rough experiences were as good for the younger ones as if we had waited for some others to do the pioneering.

Those who have of later years talked of hard times, know very little of what had to be met in the depression of 1837, with wheat at 25c per bushel in trade, corn 10c, fruit and vegetables with no marketable value. Pork $1.25 per hundred, beef $1 to $1.50, eggs 3c per dozen, butter 6c per pound. The pioneers could thank their stars if their wives could spin and weave to clothe the household and cook their beans and bread, mush and ilk and keep the garments properly washed, patched and darned.

The panic of 1857 caused as many wrecks, but agricultural products had a market value in money.

We are still here, and waiting till the shadows are a little longer grown, hoping that our descendants may have less of hard times to contend with and that they may be satisfied that we have not lived in vain, having endeavored to teach them to find a way or make one to success.

Transcriber’s note: I have typed this from a set of papers I have received in clearing out my father (James R. Leverett Jr.)’s genealogy materials. I have copied it verbatim whenever possible, not sure if different abbreviations for a single state might have meaning (unlikely) or whether it was just style, at the time, to capitalize certain things that look unusual today. Hopefully, the authentic voice of James Walker Leverett stands out. –TL, 2016