THE READER of the Boone Elledge family history may be helped to an appreciation of that history by a glimpse of
the period in which Boone Elledge lived. Boone Elledge died on Hinman Prairie in 1841. He died before the old wilderness
had completely passed. His history and that of his children is interwoven with the histories of half a hundred
early Pike county families. The story of Boone Elledge and his family is an historical narrative of absorbing interest.
No better picture of the Pike county of Boone Elledge's time can be had than that presented in an historical article
published in a now almost forgotten newspaper, the old Griggsville Reflector, in an issue of July 1, 1876, written
by George W. Hinman's son, Ashel (Asa) Hinman, who was 12 years old at the time of the Hinman settlement on the
site of present Griggsville in 1829. Mr. Hinman says in this article:
"In 1829, I think Oct. 14th, my father, George W. Hinman, crossed the Illinois river at Phillips' Ferry with
his family to make a permanent residence in Pike county. He drove out to the foot of the mound upon which the town
of Griggsville now stands, and stopped with a man by the name of Bateman (Henry Bateman), who had made a small
improvement and laid claim to the S. W. quarter of sec. 14, T. 4 S., 3 W., which my father soon afterward bought
and occupied. This was on the main traveled route from Phillips' Ferry to Quincy and Atlas, the county- seats of
Adams and Pike, the two routes parting on top of the mound in what is now called Quincy Avenue. The first settlement
on the road, which was then known as the Atlas trail, after passing the site where Griggsville was afterward built,
was seven miles out on Bay creek. Where Joel Moore had settled some two or three years before. He emigrated from
North Carolina, and, as I have understood, served in the army of the United States for the land he lived upon.
The next settlement was Col. Seeley's, twelve miles farther and three miles from Atlas. On the trail to Quincy
it was thirty miles to the first house, where lived John Wiggle, a German, who formed the nucleus for the large
German settlement that afterward settled in that part of Adams county.
"I believe Atlas was the only laid-out town in Pike county at that time. At Phillips' Ferry there was a small
settlement. I will name those I remember: Nimrod Philips, Dr. Bennett, first owners of the ferry, Tebo & McWorthy.
One and a half miles up the road lived Charles Hazelrig, the only blacksmith in the east part of the county.
"The settlement on the road west from the ferry was David Johnson's, who settled on the farm owned for a long
time by the Rev. John Shinn and now (1876) the property of E. S. Parker. Mr. Johnson settled there in 1828. He
was surveyor in this county for many years. Near this place on the north side of the road lived Richard Wade (son
of the noted Indian fighter, Josiah, whose daughter Lucinda married Boone Elledge's son Joel). The next two settlements
were Bateman, of whom I have spoken, and Andrew Phillips (Nimrod's son), who lived just east of Marshall's (1876)
blacksmith shop. Dr. Phillips (Nathan Philips) lived one and a half miles south of town on a farm now owned by
Davis (Nathan H. Davis). North of town lived Marshall Kee (Key), John Matthews, father of B. L. Matthews and grandfather
of Col. Matthews, Abel Shelly, Wm. Wilkerson, Sam Holoway, Abraham Scholl, Sam Chenoweth, and an old gentleman
by the name of Ayers. All these I have named were men of families.
"If there was a school house in the county I was not aware of its location. The first school house near Griggsville
was built in 1831. It was located a little northeast of town, a small log cabin, stick-and-clay chimney, the floor
laid from slabs split from lind logs and the seats made of same material mounted on wooden legs. For light, one
log was cut out of the building, a hewn slab put under this opening and paper pasted over it in cold weather; then
with a rousing log fire, Webster's speller, the Testament, sometimes the Life of Washington, sometimes Jack Downing.
Robinson Crusoe or whatever happened to be in the library at home, and a few copies of Daboll's or Pike's arithmetic,
and a long ‘gad' or two, Master Robert Rankin used to ‘teach the young idea how to shoot.' (The early school thus
described stood within less than half a mile and in sight of the present fine school building in the city of Griggsville.)
"The next settlements to those already mentioned were along the bluff near Chambersburg and a few in the neighborhood
of Detroit. The first settlers were poor, honest and brave, always kind to friends and ready to resent an insult,
but rarely with any weapon only such as nature furnished them with.
"The first settlements were nearly entirely confined to the edge of the timber where small fields could be
cleaned and plowed with one yoke of oxen or a span of horses, the prairie sod being tough, requiring heavy teams
to plow it.
"At this time game was very abundant. Deer, turkeys, prairie chickens, quail, raccoon, opossum and skunk were
here in immense numbers. The buffalo had disappeared, but from the amount of horns and bones that lay bleaching
on the prairies they must have been here in vast numbers.
"At this time occasional bands of Indians would come in to hunt, but the settlers would form into companies,
shoulder their rifles and march out to their camps and drive away.
"Up to the winter of 1830-31 the winters had been very mild. Flax grew well, and cotton for the first few
years did well. The women had all been raised to spin, weave and manufacture all the clothing that was needed in
the family, but a large portion of the men dressed deer-skins and made themselves pants and coats, or what they
called hunting-shirts. Some wore moccasins made of the same material, others would buy leather and manufacture
shoes for their own family, or perhaps some neighbor would become quite an expert at cobbling, and besides doing
all the shoe work for his own family, would do also a good deal for his neighbors; and I have seen women that could
make quite a respectable shoe. The men would frequently manufacture caps for themselves and boys from skins of
foxes, coons and muskrats. Honey was almost the only sweetening, besides maple sugar, that was used. Little tea
and coffee were used. Cows were cheap; the rich and nutritious grass caused them to produce choice milk and butter.
Everybody used milk in those days. Potatoes, squashes, pumpkins and the various vegetables were securely stored
for winter. The people had no money; they made out very few debts and very little dealing at the stores. What they
did was mostly trade in furs, peltries and beeswax; and some of the oldest settlers would have a little surplus
to sell to newcomers.
"It was several years before there was any grain shopped from this part of the country. The only means of
transportation was a keelboat owned and run by Ira Kellogg from Naples to St. Louis. It would make a trip once
in five or six weeks. Naples was the only trading point for all the east side of the county. All the mills I can
think of now that were then in Pike county were Johnson's little grist and saw mill, two miles above Chambersburg,
built in 1830 or 1831, Van Deusen's little corn-cracker on Blue river, that would grind from one to two bushels
per hour according to the stage of water, and Barney's horse-mill, some four or five miles from where Pittsfield
now stands. As these mills did not accommodate half the settlers, hand-mills, mortars and pestles were resorted
to, and quantities of hominy were used during the winter season.
"Now, for the habitation. Well, they were all built of logs after the fashion of the school house I described.
All had fire-places and only one room. The cooking was done in iron vessels on and around the log fire. If the
weather was cold, the family large, or company in, which very frequently happened, the wood was piled on so as
to raise the heat and cause all hands to sit back to give the cooks room to work. In at least two corners of the
cabin would be one-legged bedsteads, made by boring two holes at right angles into the logs and two to correspond
into a single post to receive the outer ends of the two rails. Clapboards being laid across, formed quite a convenient
bedstead; and besides these I have often seen a loom and spinning-wheel in use in the same cabin. This state of
affairs would often last for years before another room would be added.
"At the time of which I write, settlements were not very rapid. The land was not in market. Congress had passed
an act that all actual settlers who had lived for one year upon the public lands were entitled to enter or buy
160 acres at any time before the land was offered at public sale, which was in the fall of 1830; but very few of
the settlers had any money to buy the land upon which they lived. The land office for this district was at Edwardsville,
at which place a loan office was opened by Mason & Co. They would loan $200 to a settler which would pay the
government for 160 acres of land, the settler giving mortgage on the land and personal security for the payment
of the $200 with 35 per cent interest.
"Soon after this, the settlements became more frequent, many of the newcomers bringing some money with them.
Many of the old settlers who had borrowed money at the enormous rate of interest referred to, sold their land and
improvements, thereby enabling them to pay the mortgage and have some money left to buy another tract of unimproved
land. The most of these early settlers were from the Southern States (mostly from Kentucky). Very few of them had
ever had any advantages of an education, and, coming into a new country, where for several years schools were unknown,
and then for several years more the only schools we had being gotten up by the individual efforts of the poor settlers,
we see how limited their education must have been. We had no school fund then, no law to levy tax for school purposes,
and school houses were built by individual efforts, and teachers hired in the same way. Books and papers were very
scarce. I think the nearest paper published in the State was at Vandalia, the seat of Government at that time.
Our postoffice was at Naples in Morgan, now Scott county, where we paid twenty-five cents postage on a letter.
"With these limited advantages nearly all the children of that day grew to be men and women with but little
education, or what is considered so at the present day. And let me say to my young friends, when you feel disposed
to laugh at the speech, orthography or grammar of old fogies who have come up from those days, just laugh and feel
good, then remember them with gratitude for the many sacrifices and noble efforts they made to secure to you the
grand educational advantages you now enjoy under our free school system.
"In December, 1830, snow fell a depth of three feet on a level and drifted in many places to eight or ten
feet. This was kept up by snow falls until the middle of March. This has been known and referred to as the winter
of the deep snow. During this winter vast numbers of deer, turkey and other game died, or were killed by thoughtless
hunters. During these early settlements, wolves were very abundant and very destructive on pigs and sheep. This
county had a great many snakes, of which the rattlesnake was the most numerous and dangerous, persons and animals
being frequently bitten by them, causing the most intense pain and occasionally producing death. The habits of
these reptiles were to gather up late in the fall at some rocky bluff or other place where they could make their
way underground beyond the reach of frost and remain there until warm weather in May, when they crawled out and
lay around in the sun a few days and then dispersed for miles over the surrounding country. During the time of
their coming out in May, we used to visit their dens and kill them in large numbers. This practice, in the course
of a few years, greatly lessened their numbers, but still, in some localities, a few remain.
"In the fall of 1830, if my recollection is right, we had the first preaching, by a Methodist minister named
Hunter, whose circuit or mission covered all the territory south of Rushville, and Warsaw, lying between the Illinois
and Mississippi rivers. He went around this circuit once in four weeks. The preaching place for a little society
that was formed in the neighborhood of Griggsville was at my father's house, on the S. W. quarter of Section 14,
T. 4 S., R. 3 W."
Thus wrote Asahel Hinman in 1876, when he was 59. He had come to the county when he was 12. The Griggsville Reflector,
in which his historical article was published, was then edited by F. K. and B. L. Strother, father and son. The
elder Strother was the father of the late S. K. Strother of Pittsfield, who married Mary Hinman, a daughter of
Asahel Hinman. Asahel Hinman was the maternal grandfather and F. K. Strother the paternal grandfather of Hinman
F. Strother of Pittsfield.
S. K. Strother was state printer for the Confederacy in Rolla, North Carolina, during the Civil War. Union troopers
seized his printing office, dumped his equipment in the street and melted his type in a huge bonfire. Strother
then, in 1866, came to this western country and published the old Clayton Sentinel, later the Enterprise. On June
15, 1871, he and his son, B. L. Strother, issued the first number of the Griggsville Reflector, which continued
a prominent county journal until 1883. Later, the Strothers went to Abilene, Kansas, where they established the
Abilene Reflector, still a powerful journal in that section of Kansas. The elder Strother died at Abilene; his
son, B. L., at Manhattan, Kansas, being then Kansas state printer.
F. K. Strother, on January 18, 1851, married Miss B. V. House, and they had six children: B. L., Homolea, Geneva
A., Cora A., S. K. and F. T. Strother. The elder Strother began learning the newspaper trade at 13.
The late S. K. Strother of Pittsfield received his first newspaper training in the office of the old Griggsville
Reflector. In 1883, when he was 23, he established the Abilene (Kansas) Daily Reflector and after the sale of that
paper he took a position with the Kansas City Times, being stationed at Topeka, Kansas, as the Kansas state representative
for the Times. Later he was associated with the late W. R. Nelson of the Kansas City Star, and held several responsible
positions with that paper. Then he went to Springfield, Missouri, where he owned and edited the Springfield Leader.
At another time he edited the Chattanooga, Tennessee, Daily Sun.
In 1896 he went to Taylorville, Illinois, where he purchased the Christian County Courier, a small weekly. He afterwards
established the Taylorville Daily Courier, remaining in Taylorville until 1914. After selling the Taylorville paper
he went to Havana, Illinois, where he owned and edited the Mason County Democrat, remaining there until about 1919,
when he retired from the newspaper field and moved to Pittsfield, making his home here until his death on December
14, 1934, at the age of 74.