A HUNDRED YEARS AGO, during the shipping seasons, one might have seen almost any day along the road leading from
Griggsville hamlet to Naples Landing, a huge flat-boat shaped wagon (known then as a Conestoga or sometimes as
a "Tennessee" wagon), drawn by a pair of sturdy oxen and containing a cargo of staves, barrels or kegs.
If one of the oxen was a "large brindle ox with a white spot on its rump" and the other a "white
ox with red spots," it would be the team of Benjamin Elledge, son of Charity Boone and grandson of Daniel
Boone's brother Edward.
It was the custom to haul the staves from the stave factory, two and a half miles northeast of Griggsville, to
the Illinois river, where the staves were picked up on the river bank to await a down trip of Ira Kellogg's "Raccoon"
from Naples to St. Louis. The "Raccoon," a keel-boat, would make a trip once in five or six weeks. Naples
was long the trading point for the eastern townships and for several years the Kellogg boat was the only river
transport to St. Louis.
Benjamin Elledge's stave factory was located on the old Pittsfield-Meredosia stage route, near the southeast corner
of the southeast quarter of Section 2, Griggsville township. It was two and a half miles northeast of the new town
of Griggsville. Griggsville township was not organized until many years later. The factory was on land now owned
by Mary C. (Harrington) Riley, wife of Clarence Riley of Perry. Glenn Riley, who farms the old Elledge homestead,
occupies a large residence which stands some distance south and west of the site of Benjamin Elledge's early log
habitation. Traces of the stage route that ran that day are dimly observed across the Riley place, running diagonally
from northeast to southwest through the southeast portion of the farm. A depression in the earth and a few scattered
foundation stones fix the site of the first Elledge settlement of 1834, while nearby some broken gravestones mark
the site of the Benjamin Elledge burying ground, long since abandoned, where, among the numerous dead, sleeps an
only daughter of the Boones.
Benjamin Elledge's ox team of a century ago can still be visualized by perusing some of the early records in the
Pike county courthouse. The team was once stolen and Elledge rode horseback to Quincy and had notices printed which
were posted at public places on the Military Tract; one of these notices was posted at the courthouse door in Pittsfield,
containing a description of the missing oxen, which were later recovered in the Sangamo country, where they had
been sold to another settler by the parties who stole them from Elledge.
This same team of oxen was also involved in an early-day lawsuit between Benjamin Elledge and his neighbor to the
west, William Howerton Wilson, 1825 settler who had formerly owned the team. An old Bounty Land Register notice,
descriptive of the oxen at the time had been stolen, was included in the record of the Elledge-Wilson case. In
replevin papers that were issued in the course of this case the two oxen were described as above.
Benjamin Elledge came overland, with teams, wagons and pack horses, from Harrison county, Indiana, in 1834 and
located on Section 2 in what is now Griggsville township. With him came his wife, Catharine Reynolds, and, in order
of their ages, the following children: Adaline (with her husband, Sheldon Baldwin), Sarah (Sally), James McClain,
Leonard Boone, Edward Kindred, Elizabeth Jane, Harvey Viven and Reynolds Milton. Two daughters, Mary Beswick (or
Bessick, as the name is written in Benjamin Elledge's will) and Charity Elledge had died in Indiana in 1830 and
had been buried in Harrison county; both were born in Kentucky and died in the same year, Mary on October 1 at
the age of 21, and Charity on December 19 at the age of 19.
Benjamin was not the first Elledge in this Illinois country. Jesse Elledge, militant Baptist of early days, had
raised his voice in God's first temples along the Illinois, long before Benjamin's arrival. Jesse was in Scott
county as early as 1825 and was carrying his ministry into Pike county as early as 1828. Edward and William Elledge,
brothers of Benjamin and Scott county Pioneers of 1822, had both died in this western land before Benjamin came.
Benjamin's sister Charity (or Sarah) Allen, had been living in what is now Scott county since April, 1820, reputed
to have been the first white woman settler in that county. Francis Elledge, a son of Boone, was in Pike county
as early as 1830, and in 1831 had married Sarah Philips of the noted Philips Ferry family. James Elledge, another
brother of Benjamin, had also brought his family here prior to 1834, probably as early as 1825. James himself may
have been in these parts on an exploring trip as early as the beginning of the 19th century, the late Mrs. Hannah
Dalby of Griggsville, whose family was neighbor to James in the early 1830s, having so related.
Benjamin Elledge, on November 14, 1834, purchased from William Wilkinson and his wife Lydia the east 80 of the
southeast 160 in Section 2, Griggsville township, two and a half miles northeast of the then infant town of Griggsville
which had been laid out earlier that year. Tall prairie grass still waved where Griggsville now stands. The site
of Griggsville had been known since 1825 as Bateman's Gap, Henry Bateman having arrived there in that year, where
he further improved a site that had been established earlier in the same year by Abraham Scholl, who started the
first log cabin on Griggsville knoll in mid-May, 1825. Prior to Scholl and Bateman, the place had been known as
Sackett's Harbor, a hunter by the name of Sackett having had a rude shelter there, even before the Rosses came
to Atlas.
Wilkinson was the first owner of the 80 purchased by Elledge, having had it directly from the government under
a grant dated March 9, 1831. Elledge paid the Wilkinsons $500 for the 80, the transaction being certified by Andrew
Philips, then proprietor of famous Philips Ferry and also a Pike county justice of the peace. The transfer to Elledge
was made in the presence of Samuel Holloway, and Benjamin Elledge's eldest son, James McClain Elledge.
On the same day, Elledge purchased from Samuel and Margaret Holloway 12 3/4 acres in the northwest of Section 1,
Griggsville township, adjoining the 80 on the east, for a consideration of $17. This transaction was in the presence
of James Elledge and Sheldon Baldwin, the latter a son-in-law of Benjamin Elledge. In the deed describing the tract
a sycamore tree (spelled "cickamore" in the deed) was used as a landmark. Andrew Philips was the certifying
official.
The above properties, acquired by Benjamin Elledge in November, 1834, for $517, were sold by Benjamin's son, Reynolds
M. Elledge, and his wife Zerilda at the close of the Civil War, July 14, 1865, for $4,250, the purchasers being
Walker G. and John G. Sleight.
Benjamin Elledge remained "lord and master" of the foregoing property for the balance of his life. Following
his death in 1853 the property, under his will, was shared by his widow Catharine and his sons. On November 25,
1856, Leonard Boone deeded to his brother Reynolds 20 acres in the southeast corner of the 80-acre tract for $600.
This improved plot laid adjacent to the stage route that then ran diagonally across the southeast corner of the
80. In this deed, the property was Transferred without any encumbrance other than "the dower of Catharine
Elledge, widow of the late B. Elledge deceased."
In the deed given by Reynolds Elledge to the Sleights in 1865, the grantors (Reynolds M. Elledge and his wife Zerilda)
reserved one-eighth of an acre, a plot 4 ½ rods square, for "a burying ground for the heirs of the
late Benjamin Elledge deceased," the plot being described with great particularity. This burial plot was 60
rods north and 32 rods east of the southwest corner of the old Elledge 80. It lay about 100 yards from the early
Elledge log house; it is today traversed by a farm driveway, along which are strewn a few fragments of stones that
once marked the burials of numerous descendants of the Boone line.
Walker Sleight transferred his interest in the old Elledge 80 to John G. Sleight in 1868, and in 1869 John G. and
his wife deeded the property back to Reynolds M. Elledge and the latter's brother-in-law, James H. Ingalls, who
had married Benjamin Elledge's daughter, Elizabeth Jane. Ingalls, in 1870, transferred his interest to Reynolds,
and on March 7, 1871, the old Elledge homestead passed from the Elledge to the Harrington family, when Reynolds
M. Elledge deeded the property to Abel F. Harrington. Abel F., in 1883, deeded it to Joseph C. Harrington and he,
on July 3, 1901, deeded it to his daughter, Mary C. Harrington (now Mrs. Mary C. Riley), who is the present owner.
A few scattered stones and a sunken bit of earth are all that now mark the site of the first rude habitation of
the Elledges. Even the old stage route that passed that way in early days is now but barely discernible. None in
the neighborhood can recall the exact locations of the early cooperage and grist mill. In the nearby valley are
indications that here may once have been a living spring of water. Certain it is that the Elledge stave factory
and mill made the settlement a place of considerable importance in those early days.
The Elledge cabin was a large double log habitation, much superior to the customary pioneer abode of the day. Mrs.
Elledge, daughter of a wealthy Virginia family, had many beautiful things, which were kept packed in chests or
boxes and seldom displayed. It is said that her marriage displeased a wealthy uncle by whom she had been reared,
and that the luxuries to which she once had been used were hers no longer.
Mrs. Alice Carter, 7131 Prospect Avenue, Kansas City, Missouri, a daughter of Reynolds M. Elledge and a granddaughter
of Benjamin and Catharine Reynolds Elledge, writes, in a letter to her cousin, Evelyn Elledge Boone of Hibbing,
Minnesota:
"Grandmother's maiden name was Katerine (she signed as Catharine) Reynolds. She was raised in Virginia or
Kentucky by a rich uncle whose name was Reynolds. He was a tobacco planter, and was very wealthy. He was the owner
of many slaves. Grandma had a negro girl to wait on her, her own carriage, with liveried negro to drive it, etc.
Uncle Boone (Benjamin's son, Leonard Boone) wrote to me about it. Grandmother was born a great lady, but she married
a poor man against her uncle's wishes, so I guess he was through with her. I remember the beautiful silks she had
and many other beautiful things. I remember she did not allow me to touch a thing she had."
It is related that Catharine was very unhappy over her family's estrangement following her marriage, her unhappiness
sometimes caused a crossness that led some of her grandchildren to think that she might have been a stepmother
to their parents. Harvey, one of her sons, told his daughter Evelyn that his mother was very strict, but "very,
very kind and good when any of them were sick."
Reynolds M. Elledge, her youngest son, also married a Reynolds, Zerilda Reynolds, in Pike county, Illinois. She,
too, had come from a family with slaves to do all the work; she was disowned by her family when she married Elledge,
a "Free Stater." She and her mother-in-law, both unused to pioneer hardships, appear at one time to have
shared the household work in the Benjamin Elledge home near Griggsville, but apparently were unable to manage it
very well.
The first born of Benjamin and Catharine Elledge's children was the girl Adaline, born in Kentucky, probably on
the "banks of Licking," January 26, 1807, Adaline bore also the name of the Marquis de Lafayette, the
great French general of Revolutionary days, her name appearing in an old family record as "Adaline Delefyat
Demarcus Elledge." At the age of 18, Adaline had married, in Harrison county, Indiana, Sheldon Baldwin, the
marriage occurring "September the 1st in the year of our Lord 1825." She and her husband came also in
the Benjamin Elledge wagon train to Griggsville in 1834.
The Baldwins were originally from Connecticut; they later tarried in Kentucky, then in Harrison county, Indiana,
coming thence to Pike county, Illinois. The parents were John and Sarah Ann (Hawkins) Baldwin. Samuel G. Baldwin
later in Pike county married Adaline Elledge Baldwin's sister Sarah, and Lewis H. Baldwin married Adeline's and
Sarah's cousin, Maria Jane Elledge, daughter of Benjamin's brother Boone. Richard Boone Elledge, a son of Benjamin's
brother William, married a Baldwin daughter, Catharine S.
Samuel Reynolds, uncle of Benjamin's wife Catharine, was a large landowner in the vicinity of the Benjamin Elledge
settlement. He had traded extensively in these bounty lands on the old Military Tract and had acquired large acreages
in northeast Pike county from the soldiers of the War of 1812, upon whom the lands had been bestowed by a grateful
government. Many of them, however, never came to the Illinois country to claim their bounties, but disposed of
their claims in the East, sometimes for a horse, a cow or a pair of shoes.
Benjamin Elledge's stave factory and grist mill became the center of activities for a noted community. A half mile
north from the Elledge settlement dwelt pioneer Abel Shelley, who had been in this region when old Fort Dearborn
(now Chicago) was in Pike county. He had left his native New York state in 1816, lived then four years in Kentucky,
and in 1820 came to Old Morgan county, Illinois, locating in that section that later became Scott county. He crossed
the river into Pike county in 1827 and located a little over a quarter mile east of present Shelley school house.
His nearest mill in very early times was at Alton, some 80 miles distant, to which he used to go down the Illinois
river in a canoe with his grist.
Three-quarters of a mile west from Elledge's was the early log cabin of William Howerton and Matilda (Scholl) Wilson,
settlers of 1825; south of Wilson's dwelt the Curry family, one of whom, Riley J., married Sarah D. Elledge, a
daughter of Benjamin's brother William; west from Curry's was the double log house of Abraham Scholl, pioneer of
1825; west of Scholl was Banner Boone Elledge, son of James; north of Scholl's at the summit of "Coffey Hill,"
was Nathan Coffey's large family, settlers there in 1829; east of Elledge's was Eliada Dickinson's and Robert Walker's
settlements, also the early settlements of Robert Seaborn and Richmond Cavender; south of Benjamin Elledge's was
Uriah Elledge, nephew of Benjamin and eldest son of Boone, who located on Section 13, Griggsville township, in
1830; in this neighborhood were also the early McClains (Robert, John and Isaac), a family intermarried with the
Elledges and whose name was borne by one of Benjamin Elledge's sons, James McClain. It was from John McClain that
Boone Elledge acquired his homestead in Section 6, Griggsville, in 1836.
Others of the early neighborhood (neighborhoods were large in those days) included David Johnston (the early county
surveyor), Josias Wade (Kentuckian whose father was a soldier of General Harrison at Tippecanoe), Andrew Philips
(son of the noted Nimrod), Marshall Key (relative of Francis Scott Key and descendant of the royal English House
of Tudor, whose daughter Eliza in 1841 married Benjamin Elledge's son, Leonard Boone), John B. Matthews (father
of Captain Benjamin L. and grandfather of Colonel Asa C. Matthews, first Comptroller of the U. S. Treasury), the
William Wilkersons and the Samuel Holloways. To the northwest was Benjamin's cousin, Edward Boone Scholl, who had
just laid out his town of Boonesville (now Perry), and nearby were the Joseph Bentlys, parents of Boone Scholl's
wife, Susannah.