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From: "Elizabeth Richardson" <>
Subject: [ILHENDER-L] A little on early Henderson County - 1
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 11:37:25 -0900


[David Rankin spent most of his young adult life in Henderson County and
was still enumerated on the 1880 census there, although by that time his
farming interests had expanded to Missouri, Nebraska and Colorado. At
the time he published his story his various land and stock holdings were
valued in excess of $4 million.]

Excerpted from "David Rankin, Farmer"; by David Rankin (1825-1910)
orig. pub. 1909 at Tarkio, Missouri

. . . and then moved out to Warren county, Illinois (now Henderson
county), in March, 1836. We were about a month going from Indiana to
Illinois, traveling every day. The trip was made overland with teams, a
distance of about 250 miles. The horses would get stuck in the mud and,
had it not been for the oxen we had along, and the oxen of our neighbors
who were moving with us, we could not have finished our journey on
account of the mud. There were no fences in the country and the houses
were twenty to thirty miles apart. There were no bridges and we had to
ford the streams. At the time there were only a few houses in
Bloomington and Peoria. We had to cross the Illinois river at Peoria in
a flatboat. having to wait out turn, it took us two days to get across.
This was about the only chance I ever had to go fishing.
We had no matches in those days and had to make a fire with the
flintrock. I remember also seeing father start a fire with a little hand
grain sickle, by putting powder on a Dutch oven lid and striking the lid
with the sickle, using tow to catch fire from the powder. I have carried
fire a mile from neighbor's when out fire was out at home. I was sixteen
years old before I saw a match. It seems strange now to think that there
ever was a time when there was no matches, now when you can buy enough
matches for a nickel to last the ordinary family a month, and some
careful and savings ones possible two or three months. . . .


contributed by
Elizabeth Richardson, Ketchikan, Alaska

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