Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby (1812–1873) was a midwife, frontier doctor, dentist, herbologist, and scientist in southern Illinois.

Anna Bixby

Anna Pierce was the daughter of farmers who had moved from Philadelphia and, in 1828, settled in southeastern Illinois, close to Rock Creek's village. After finishing school, Anna traveled to Philadelphia to train in midwifery and dentistry. Still, she became the first physician in Hardin County and, consequently, a general practitioner for her community on her return to Illinois. 

Anna Bixby may also have been the first female doctor in Illinois; others claimed she was a midwife from Tennessee. She married her first husband, Isaac Hobbs.

She researched milk sickness, causing a good deal of fatality among both people and calves, including Anna's mother and sister. Noting the seasonal nature of the disease and the fact that sheep and goat milk were not affected, she reasoned that the cause must be a poisonous herb. 

Dr. Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby discovered that White Snakeroot (Ageratina altissima) and Milkweed (Asclepias) were the cause of milk sickness from grazing cows eating the wild plants, which fatally poisoned the milk consumed by frontier settlers.

 

However, she could not determine the precise cause when she met an elderly Indian woman in the woods whom the local people called "Aunt Shawnee." 

Shawnee." She was a herbalist and healer and showed Anna a plant, White Snakeroot (Ageratina altissima), and "Milkweed," which had caused the same symptoms as the milk sickness did in her own tribe. The plant had killed many Shawnee cattle, and she told Anna it was probably what she was looking for.

Experiments on a calf confirmed the toxic effect of White Snakeroot and Milkweed. When cattle consume the plant, their meat and milk become contaminated and cause the sometimes fatal condition of milk sickness. The milking cows did not fall ill, but the other cattle and those who drank their milk fell victim to the toxin.

One of the most notable and tragic cases of the "milk sickness" was Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, who died at 34 years old in 1818. As hard as Bixby worked, she could not stop the scourge. When Louis Pasteur discovered pasteurization [1] in 1856, non-toxic milk began.

The plague was finally wiped out. However, despite Bixby's efforts, it was not until 1928 (55 years after her death) that research confirming her discovery was published. Her position as a frontier doctor and a woman would have made it hard for her to gain the respect of the medical profession of the time. 

After Isaac Hobbs died, Anna Pierce Hobbs married her second husband, Eson Bixby, who became a notorious outlaw around Cave-In-Rock on the Ohio River.

Anna Hobbs Bixby died in Rock Creek, Hardin County, Illinois, in 1873.

THE LEGEND OF ANNA BIXBY: Ghosts & Buried Treasure

According to local legend, Anna Bixby left a treasure trove concealed in a cave named after her. The treasure is supposedly buried in Rock Creek, Hardin County, Illinois, and has never been found. 

Cave-in-Rock, Illinois.

The following significant incident in Anna's life, during her second marriage to Eson Bixby, is believed to be involved in several criminal enterprises. The legend does have some elements of truth, which originated in the book "The Ballads of the Bluff" by Judge W.M. Hall, who allegedly had a diary that belonged to Anna Bixby. Historians have since disputed much of the story, although it was believed that Hall was simply passing along reports that he had heard. Here is the basic version of the story:

Legend holds that John Murrell and his gang, along with James Ford and other disreputable characters, distilled whiskey and made counterfeit money (coiners) in Cave-in-Rock in Hardin County that has since become known as Bixby’s Cave. Enos Bixby, Anna’s husband, took over after these men were driven out or killed and continued their operations, along with committing robberies (river pirates) and stealing timber. Bixby married Anna when she was an old woman because he hoped to steal her money from her. Finally, he attempted to kill her by tying her up with ropes and heavy chain and pushing her off a bluff. As it happened though, she fell into a tree and managed to escape. Not long after, Anna died suddenly and she was buried with the rope and chain that her husband tried to kill her with. Her ghost has haunted her burial site ever since, often appearing as a shimmering light.

But, despite the tale's popularity, it only contains elements of the truth. The period when all of this allegedly occurred is the biggest problem with the story. Bixby's cave did (and does still) exist. However, after 1811, it needed to be bigger to house a moonshine distillery and, indeed, a counterfeiting operation. The cave was heavily damaged in the 1811 earthquake that rocked the New Madrid Fault and afterward was much less accessible than before. Several of the men involved in the story's criminal aspects were dead long before Anna married Eson Bixby, and others who allegedly worked together were children during the time of the opposite criminal's heyday. If the story had involved these men, it would have happened in the 1820s. This seems odd since Anna's first husband died in 1845, and Anna survived until 1873. 

On the other hand, recent historians believe that the story may have occurred in some fashion, but it was told and re-told using well-known outlaws as the key players in the tale when the real culprits may have been much lesser known. Counterfeiters (coiners) were operating in Hardin County at the time, and it has been learned that Anna's second husband was involved with criminals. 

Counterfeiters used a coin die to make counterfeit coins from cheap metals or restamping Mexican coin denominations.

In 1935, the Hardin County Independent newspaper published what was likely a more accurate account of Anna's escape from her murderous husband. The writer of the account, Charles L. Foster, had left Hardin County in the 1880s but had grown up in the Rock Creek area, a few homes away from Anna Bixby. He was born in 1863 and vaguely remembered Eson Bixby when he was alive, which dates the escape to the late 1860s, in the years following the Civil War. 

According to the account, a rider came to the Bixby household late during a terrible thunderstorm. He called out to the house that someone needed Anna's medical skills, and she immediately came out. She mounted the rider's second horse, and they rode into the woods. Thanks to the heavy storm clouds overhead, the trail was shrouded in darkness, and Anna soon became disoriented and unsure of their route. However, at one point during the ride, she looked over. When a flash of lightning illuminated the night, Anna saw the identity of the mysterious rider — it was her husband, Eson.

When he realized that she had discovered his identity, Bixby brought the horses to a halt, and he quickly bound her hands and gagged her. Evidently, he intended to do away with her, and Anna panicked. When she heard the jingle of chains being removed from his saddlebags, Anna became so frightened that she began to run, dashing into the dark woods. As she plunged into the forest, her fear became even more vital as she realized she had no idea where she was. The storm continued to rage, sending rain lashing down on her and causing the wind to whip through the trees in a wild fury. Anna ran for some distance, and then suddenly, the ground beneath her vanished, and she tumbled over a large bluff and crashed to the ground far below. The fall broke the ropes that bound her hands and broke some of her bones, seriously injuring her. Nevertheless, she crawled a short distance to a fallen tree and slithered behind it.

A few moments later, a light appeared in the darkness at the top of the bluff, and Eson Bixby came into view carrying a burning torch. He climbed down from the top of the rocks and searched for Anna, but he did not find her. After a few minutes, he returned to his horse and rode away. 

Once he was gone, Anna began crawling and stumbling out of the forest. It took her until sunrise to find a nearby farmhouse, but when she reached it, she found herself at a friend's doorstep — only a few houses away from her own. They quickly took her in, and she told them what had happened.

Bixby was soon arrested and taken to jail in Elizabethtown. He escaped through and vanished for a time. He was later captured again in Missouri, but once again, he ran. This time, he disappeared for good and was never seen again.

Anna lived in the Rock Creek community of Hardin County until 1873; when she died, she was buried next to her first husband, and only a simple "A" was inscribed on her headstone. But some believe that Anna, or at least her spirit, lives on.

The legend of Anna Bixby states that her husband wanted to do away with her because of a fortune that she had amassed over the years. What may have amounted to a "fortune" in those days may have been much smaller than what we would consider a fortune today, but most believe it was a large amount of money. The legend further states that when Anna learned of Eson's greed, she hid the money somewhere just before he attempted to do away with her. It is believed that the hiding place for the treasure was the cave beside Rock Creek in Hooven Hollow, which was also said to have been the hiding place of outlaw gangs. 

The cave is still known as Anna Bixby Cave today. Over the years, people have reported seeing a strange light appear along the bluff in the cave's vicinity. The significant, glowing light moves in and out of the trees and among the rocks, vanishing and reappearing without explanation. It is believed that the light may be that of Anna Bixby, still watching over the treasure that she hid away years ago.

Folklorist Charles Neely collected one of the most detailed accounts of the Bixby ghost light in his 1938 book Tales & Songs of Southern Illinois. The story of the spook light was told by Reverend E.N. Hall, a minister who once served the Rock Creek Church and had several brushes with the uncanny in this part of Hardin County. One evening in his younger days, Hall and a friend named Hobbs walked over to a nearby farm to escort two girls to church. When they got to the house, they found no one home. It appeared that the girls left without them, and the two young men stood around for a few moments, wondering what to do. 

They stood at the edge of the yard as they talked and looked toward the darkened house. The house stood on a short knoll with a hollow that ran away from the gate to the left for about 100 yards and then joined with another hollow that came back to the right side of the gate. Hobbs was looking eastward along the bluff when he saw what appeared to be a "ball of fire about the size of a washtub" going very fast along the east hollow.

At first, the young men thought that it might be someone on a horse carrying a lantern, then realized that it was moving much too fast for that. The light followed the hollow to the left of the gate along a slight curve where one cavity met the other. It followed the opposite hollow and came right up the bank where the two men were standing. It paused, motionless, about 30 feet away from them, and began to burn down smaller and smaller and then turned red as it went out. Finally, it simply vanished.

The two young men decided not to go to church. They went directly to the farm where they had been working and went to bed. The next morning, at the breakfast table, they told Mr. Patten, the farmer they had been working for, what they had both seen the night before. He laughed at them and said it had just been a "mineral light" carried by the wind. He had no explanation, though, for how fast the light had moved or that there had been no wind the previous evening. He could also not explain why the light seemed to follow the two hollows and then stop in place and burn out.

Later, Hall had the chance to speak with the woman who owned the farm, Mrs. Walton, and asked her what the light might have been. She then told him the story of Anna Bixby, who had owned the property before she had, and explained that to protect her money from her criminal husband, she had hidden her fortune in a cave that was located on the property. Mrs. Walton always believed that the spook light was the ghost of Anna Bixby, checking to see that her money was still hidden away. She had seen the light herself on many occasions, always disappearing into the cave.

If she knew so well where Anna's money was hidden, Hall asked her why she had never bothered to go and get it. "I would," Mrs. Walton answered, "if I thought that Granny Bixby wanted me to have it."

A historical marker has been mounted in Anna Bixby's honor at Cave-in-Rock, Illinois, near her home. In southern Illinois, the Anna Bixby Women's Center in Harrisburg, Illinois, provides shelter and services to abused women and children.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

---

[1] Pasteurized vs. Homogenized

PASTEURIZATION

Louis Pasteur discovered pasteurization in 1856 when an alcohol manufacturer commissioned him to determine what was causing beetroot alcohol to sour. Pasteurization does not kill all microorganisms in milk but is intended to kill some bacteria and make some enzymes inactive. 

But who first suggested that milk be pasteurized to make it safer for consumption? 

It was Frans von Soxhlet, a German agricultural chemist. He was the first person to suggest that milk sold to the public be pasteurized in 1886. 

The term "pasteurization" is derived from Louis Pasteur's pioneering work on the destruction of microbes through heat treatment, but Pasteur's area of interest was wine and beer, not milk. Pasteur didn't even invent pasteurization. Heat treatment that made foods safer was known long before Pasteur, but the French chemist was the first to explain the phenomenon. Pasteur realized that spoilage was due to chemical reactions initiated by living microbes, and heat treatment prevented spoilage because of its destructive effect on these living organisms. If wine or beer turned sour, Pasteur maintained, it was because of contamination by acid-producing rogue yeasts after the alcohol-producing yeast had done its job. The heating of wine would then destroy these invaders and preserve the beverage.

Milk presented an altogether different scenario from wine. Typhoid and scarlet fever, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and various diarrheal diseases were transmitted through milk consumption. The pasteurization process kills those microbes like what's found in White Snakeroot and Milkweed.

How is milk pasteurized? Chilled raw milk is heated by passing it between heated stainless steel plates until it reaches 161° F, and it's then held at that temperature for at least 15 seconds before it's quickly cooled back to its original temperature of 39° F.

HOMOGENIZATION

Homogenization is an entirely separate process that occurs after pasteurization in most cases. The purpose of homogenization is to break down fat molecules in milk so that they resist separation. Without homogenization, fat molecules in milk will rise to the top and form a layer of cream. Homogenizing milk prevents this separation by breaking the molecules down to such a small size that they remain suspended evenly throughout the milk instead of rising to the top.

The homogenization process was invented and patented by Auguste Gaulin in 1899 when he described a method for homogenizing milk. Gaulin's machine, a three-piston thruster outfitted with tiny filtration tubes, was shown at the World Fair in Paris in 1900.

Homogenization is a mechanical process and doesn't involve any additives. Like pasteurization, arguments exist for and against it. It's advantageous for large-scale dairy farms to homogenize milk because it allows them to mix milk from different herds without issue. By preventing cream from rising to the top, homogenization also leads to a longer shelf life of milk, which will be most attractive to consumers who favor milk without the cream layer. This allows large farms to ship greater distances and do business with more retailers. Finally, homogenization makes it easier for dairies to filtrate out the fat and create two percent, one percent and skim milk. 

The Dr. Richard Eells house was an Underground Railroad stop in Quincy, Illinois.

On August 21, 1842, Dr. Richard Eells heard another knock at his back door. This time, it was Charley standing there, his clothes still wet from his swim across the Mississippi River.

Dr. Richard Eells House, 415 Jersey Street, Quincy, Illinois, is the oldest standing two-story brick house in Quincy and was used as an underground railroad stop.

A few days earlier, the slave had run away from his owner, Chauncey Durkey of Monticello, Missouri. Dr. Eells had to act quickly, for he knew the slave catchers would be coming soon. Eells told Charley to wait for him in the carriage house. Eells then ran upstairs to his bedroom to get dry clothes for Charley.

Quincy was Stop Number One on the northern route of the Underground Railroad out of Missouri. From Quincy, slaves were quickly and secretly moved from one "station" (hiding place) to another, heading north and east to Chicago and eventually Canada, where slavery was no longer permitted. All "conductors" who helped the slaves go from one station to the next risked their own freedom and fortune, for aiding an escaped slave was breaking federal law.

Eells knew he could not hide Charley in his home at 415 Jersey Street. Just across the river lay Missouri, a slave state. At this time, it was legal for slave catchers to leave their state and enter a free state (Illinois) to capture runaway slaves. The doctor had long been associated with the abolition movement in Illinois. In 1839, he was elected President of the Adams County Anti-slavery Society. His home would be the first place the slave catchers would look for the runaway slave.

Charley changed into the dry clothes while Eells prepared the carriage. They then headed east toward present-day 24th Street. The carriage turned north along the cemetery (today's Madison Park), apparently leading to the Mission Institute near 25th and Maine. The Mission Institute was run by Dr. David Nelson, who trained Christian missionaries there.

At night, it was a meeting place for abolitionists. Slave catchers were already near the area, watching for the runaway. They saw Dr. Eells' carriage approach, and Charley lifted his head from beneath a buffalo robe. The men tried to stop the carriage but to no avail. Charley jumped out of the carriage and ran across the cemetery. He was captured later that night and turned over to Chauncey Durkey's brother. Dr. Eells swiftly turned his carriage around and returned home. Sadly, we know nothing more about what happened to Charley.

The Quincy Whig of Saturday, August 27, 1842, reported: "The second day after the occurrences alluded to above – which was Tuesday last – a warrant was issued for the apprehension of Dr. Richard Eells – an old and respectable physician of this city, a well-known abolitionist; in fact, one of the principal head men of this misguided sect in this county, and one of their candidates for the Legislature at the late election, on the charge of harboring, secreting, and assisting the slave spoken of to run away from his lawful owner."

Dr. Eells was released on bail and was to appear at the Circuit Court the next month. When his wife became ill, Dr. Eells requested that the trial be delayed. The state of Missouri, under Gov. Thomas Reynolds, asked that Eells be tried in Missouri, a dangerous situation for any abolitionist to be tested in a slave state. Eells then used the Underground Railroad to go to the Chicago area for a while. In January 1843, Gov. Ford of Illinois signed the extradition order to send Eells to be tried in Missouri. Because of so much abolitionist pressure within his own state, he rescinded the order in February 1843. Eells returned to Quincy. In April 1843, Judge Stephen A. Douglas found Dr. Eells guilty and fined him $400. The case was to be appealed to the Illinois State Supreme Court. In February 1844, the State Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling, with three justices dissenting.

Dr. Eells died on a steamboat near Cincinnati, Ohio, on October 4, 1846. Abolitionists appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court in an attempt to end slavery. The executors of the Eells estate were represented by Salmon P. Chase and William Seward (later treasury secretaries and state secretaries, respectively, in the Lincoln administration). In 1852, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Illinois State Supreme Court's rulings. This is the first case from Quincy that went to the United States Supreme Court. A copy of the Supreme Court case can be seen at the Eells house and on the Historical Society's website.

Because of its significance to the history of the Underground Railroad and because all the information is documented in the county, state, and federal courts, the National Park Service has designated the Dr. Richard Eells House at 415 Jersey Street, Quincy, an official Historic Underground Railroad Site.

History vindicated Eells long ago, but the law did the same until Wednesday, December 31, 2014. As part of a wide-ranging clemency action, Gov. Pat Quinn formally pardoned Eells and two other 19th-century abolitionists convicted of assisting escaped slaves.

"It's important for all of us to remember heroes who spoke up and acted at great risk to themselves for what was right, even when they knew it was not what the law would support," said Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon, who helped to lead the clemency effort. "I think we need more reminders of that."

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Frances Willard was the first Dean of Women at Evanston's Northwestern University and long-time President of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.

Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard was born on September 28, 1839, in Churchville, New York. She lived there with her parents, Josiah Willard and Mary Thompson Hill Willard, and her older brother Oliver, until 1841 when the family moved to Oberlin, Ohio. In 1846 the family, with the addition of sister Mary, moved to southeastern Wisconsin to a farm near Janesville. Willard spent most of her childhood there. She was almost entirely educated at home by her mother, but did attend a one-room school for a short time and then Milwaukee Female College for one term.

Frances Willard at 23 years old.

In 1858, at age 18, Willard moved with her family to Evanston to attend North Western Female College, a Methodist-affiliated secondary school, (not affiliated with Northwestern University). She graduated in 1859 and began a teaching career that included both one-room schools in nearby towns and, as her reputation grew, more prestigious positions in secondary schools in Pennsylvania and New York. During this time she was engaged to Charles Henry Fowler, an Evanston resident, and classmate of her brother, and later had a romance with a fellow teacher at Genessee College in New York. Neither relationship culminated in marriage, though, and Willard remained single throughout her life.

In 1871 Willard became president of the newly formed Evanston College for Ladies. When this college merged with Northwestern University in 1873, Willard became the first Dean of Women of the Women’s College. In 1874, after months of disagreement with university President Charles Henry Fowler (her former fiancé) over her governance of the Women’s College, Willard resigned. That summer she began to pursue a new career in the fledgling woman’s temperance movement, traveling to the east coast and participating in one of the many crusades. When she returned to Evanston, she was asked to be president of the Chicago group supporting the crusades.

In November 1874 Willard participated in the founding convention of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and was elected the first corresponding secretary of the WCTU. As such she was given the task of corresponding with and traveling to many of the small towns and cities in the United States, working to form local Unions and build support for the WCTU’s cause. In 1877 she met Anna Gordon and asked her to be her personal secretary. Gordon was a great help to Willard for the rest of her life, providing key organizational expertise as well as friendship. Willard worked hard during these early years to broaden the WCTU’s reform movement to include such things as woman’s suffrage, woman’s rights, education reforms, and labor reforms. She later became an anti-lynching advocate as well. The support for this broader view of the WCTU’s reform work became clear when Willard was elected President of the WCTU in 1879.

Under Willard’s leadership, the WCTU grew to be the largest organization of women in the nineteenth century. She saw the WCTU both as a means for accomplishing societal reform and as a means for training women to accomplish this reform. She urged WCTU members to become involved in local and national politics, to advocate for the causes in which they believed, to make speeches, write letters, sign and distribute petitions, and do whatever they could (since they couldn’t vote) to create support for change. She also saw the WCTU as part of a wider reform movement, especially regarding issues of alcohol and woman’s suffrage, and created a broad network of friends and coworkers who advocated for the same reforms as she did.

Frances Willard in the 1890s.

After her mother died in 1892, Willard began to suffer from increasing ill-health and began to spend more time abroad, staying in England at the home of her friend Lady Isabel Somerset and working on founding of the World’s WCTU from there. Her absence from the United States raised questions about her ability to lead the National WCTU, but support for her leadership never entirely faded. Willard was by this time one of the most famous women in the world, and through her, the WCTU was able to mobilize women and gain the support of men for their causes. By this time the WCTU had a membership of 150,000 and was considered a powerful force in social reform.

In late 1897, Willard’s health began to deteriorate rapidly. She went on a pilgrimage to her birthplace in Churchville, New York and her childhood home in Janesville, Wisconsin, and returned briefly to the house in Evanston. In February 1898, she was preparing to sail to England to stay with Lady Isabel Somerset when she fell ill with influenza in New York City. She died in the Empire Hotel on February 17, 1898, at the age of fifty-eight. Many were stunned by the suddenness of Willard’s death. Accolades from around the world poured in and Willard’s funeral in New York City, as well as the memorials held in towns between New York and Chicago, where her casket was returned for burial, were crowded with mourners. She lay in state in the WCTU headquarters building in downtown Chicago for one day and twenty thousand mourners paid their respects. After a ceremony in Evanston at the Methodist Church, her remains were cremated and her ashes were placed in her mother’s grave in Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago.

This statue of Frances Willard was given to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol by the State of Illinois in 1905. Her statue was the first honoring a woman to be chosen for the collection. Artist: Helen Farnsworth Mears

History of the Frances Willard House Museum
The history of the Willard house tells the fascinating story of the flexible use of a house as a private residence, dormitory, workspace, memorial, and museum. Its rooms were constantly adapted to the present needs of their occupants. Frances Willard began this tradition by re-using her father’s office as her own, and then later moving to the maid’s room and giving her office to Anna Gordon. She continued this with the construction of the Annex for her brother’s family, and when the Annex was no longer needed as a residence, she adapted it for use as office and dormitory space for the WCTU. When she died, the WCTU, through Anna Gordon, continued this tradition, moving their headquarters to the house, and adapting the private rooms as a memorial to Willard’s life. After a new headquarters building was built behind the house, the house began to be used as a museum and residence for the WCTU.

Frances Willard House Museum and Archives.

After Frances Willard died in 1898, during the President’s Address in the Twenty-Sixth Annual Meeting in October 1899, it was determined that WTCU Headquarters be moved to the Annex (where they remained until 1922 when they relocated to the new headquarters built on the west side of the property, behind Rest Cottage). Noting the significance of Rest Cottage for the WCTU, Lillian M. N. Stevens (the WCTU president after Willard), spoke of the house as a holy place, one befitting pilgrimages from WCTU devotees:

"It is a privilege that cannot be too highly estimated that our national offices should be there, that our prayers, our plans, and our daily work…should have the consecration of such surroundings and that Rest Cottage should thus continue to be the center from which our influence as an NWCTU can most widely radiate, a Mecca for the prayerful thought and devoted love of white ribboners everywhere."

In the spring of 1900 invitations were sent out to hundreds of people formally inviting them to the opening of the new WCTU headquarters at Rest Cottage. More than 200 people attended the ”Dedicatory Service” held Saturday afternoon, April 21, 1900, at 3pm. Newspaper reports from the time described the opening, the prayer service and speeches were given, and also the new offices. They also described a tour of parts of the house that had up until then been private rooms. Although the invitations had not announced it, Rest Cottage was officially opened as a museum of and memorial to the life of Frances Willard that day. The newspapers reported that the south side of the house, especially the “Den” where “most of the famous white-ribboner’s literary work was done,” was being kept “in the condition in which Miss Willard left it” and was now open for public viewing.

The house served as headquarters for the WCTU until 1910 when the ”Literature Building” was constructed on a back portion of the lot behind the house. All of the offices for the WCTU were moved into the new building. The first floor of the north side of Willard house was converted into a museum of WCTU artifacts and archival materials, and the second floor was used as bedrooms for WCTU workers. The south side of the house continued to be used as a museum of Willard’s private life, and the residence of Anna Gordon. The house continued to be used in this manner until Gordon’s death in 1931. The first floor remained as museum space, but the second-floor bedrooms, on both the south and north-sides, were then used as sleeping space for WCTU workers.

It is the goal of the Frances Willard Historical Association, established in 1994 to care for and manage the house, and to tell all of the stories of Willard House. Frances Willard House Museum and Archives are located at 1730 Chicago Avenue in Evanston Illinois.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

How the City of Newton and Jasper County, Illinois, got their names.

The City of Newton, Illinois.
Sergeant John Newton (1755–1780) was a soldier of the American Revolutionary War who was popularized by Mason Locke Weems, better known as Parson Weems (an American book agent and author who wrote the first biography of George Washington immediately after his death) in his school books in the early 19th century. Newton served under Brigadier General Francis Marion, the famous "Swamp Fox." Today Newton appears to have been a very minor figure. However, place names across the United States demonstrate his former fame. He is considered one of the popular fictionalized heroic enlisted men of the American Revolution.

            1875 map of Jasper County, Illinois and the County Seat of Newton.

Parson Weems' has Sgt. Newton bravely save a group of American prisoners from execution by capturing their British guards at the 1779 Siege of Savannah. However, no contemporary account of this rescue exist, and the only source is the very unreliable Parson Weems. In fact, according to Lieutenant Colonel Peter Horry, who took part in the campaign, "Newton was a thief and a villain"

Sgt. Newton's tale is similar to the true story of Sgt. William Jasper, who was a genuine hero but was exaggerated by Weems. 

The County of Jasper, Illinois.
Sergeant William Jasper (1750-1779)was called to Sullivan's Island to help protect Charles Towne Harbor. There he served under Colonel William Moultrie, who was in charge of the defense of Charleston against the British Navy. A few days before the British were due to arrive, Colonel Moultrie decided to build a fort to protect the harbor. His officers were sent local plantation owners, to borrow their slaves to help with the creation of the fort. Soldiers, slaves, and volunteers banded together to chop down palmettos and use them in its construction.

Initially called Fort Sullivan, some time after the battle the fort was renamed to Fort Moultrie. The British arrived before the fort was finished, its whole back remaining incomplete. The Moultrie flag was raised over the structure, and a ten-hour siege began.

Low on ammunition, the 2nd South Carolina Regiment only fired when ships closed in on the fort. The flag, designed by Moultrie himself at the behest of the colonial government, was shot down, and fell to the bottom of the ditch on the outside of the fort. Leaping from an embrasure, Jasper recovered the flag, which he tied to a sponge staff and replaced on the parapet, where he supported it until a permanent flag staff had been procured and installed. With this rallying point, the colonists held out until sunset, when the British retreated. They did not succeed in taking Charleston until several years later.

Because of Jasper's heroism, Governor John Rutledge presented him with his personal sword, and offered him a lieutenant's commission. He did not accept the offer to become an officer, saying that he would only be an embarrassment since he could neither read nor write. He was also presented with two silk flags by Mrs. Susannah Elliott.

Data:
Newton is the largest, oldest and only city (although several there are villages) in Jasper County. Because of its favorable location within the county, it was named county seat in 1835. Jasper County was formed in 1831 out of Clay and Crawford Counties and approved on December 19, 1834.

Several states have a Newton and Jasper county adjacent to each other, as though they were regarded as a pair. Several other states have a Jasper County with a county seat of Newton, or vice versa. There are twelve Jasper cities/towns and five Jasper counties; fourteen Newton cities/towns and four Newton counties that are located in the United States. 

Surely, these men were widely remembered.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Women and their place in The Illinois Confederacy.

---

In historical writing and analysis, PRESENTISM introduces present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past. Presentism is a form of cultural bias that creates a distorted understanding of the subject matter. Reading modern notions of morality into the past is committing the error of presentism. Historical accounts are written by people and can be slanted, so I try my hardest to present fact-based and well-researched articles.

Facts don't require one's approval or acceptance.

I present [PG-13] articles without regard to race, color, political party, or religious beliefs, including Atheism, national origin, citizenship status, gender, LGBTQ+ status, disability, military status, or educational level. What I present are facts — NOT Alternative Facts — about the subject. You won't find articles or readers' comments that spread rumors, lies, hateful statements, and people instigating arguments or fights.

FOR HISTORICAL CLARITY

When I write about the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, I follow this historical terminology:

• The use of old commonly used terms, disrespectful today, i.e., REDMAN or REDMEN, SAVAGES, and HALF-BREED are explained in this article.

Writing about AFRICAN-AMERICAN history, I follow these race terms:

• "NEGRO" was the term used until the mid-1960s.
• "BLACK" started being used in the mid-1960s.
• "AFRICAN-AMERICAN" [Afro-American] began usage in the late 1980s.

— PLEASE PRACTICE HISTORICISM —

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PAST IN ITS OWN CONTEXT.

 

---

During the last years of the seventeenth century and the early decades of the eighteenth century, the French reported that Illiniwek men spoke disparagingly when they referred to women; the Europeans even concluded that Illiniwek women were the slaves of the men. Indian women have been referred to as the "Hidden Half" because the documentary records provided a cloudy view of the female arena. The gender roles and status issues concerning Illiniwek women, however, have been made reasonably clear by Pierre Delliette, a nephew of LaSalle's lieutenant, Henri Tonti, other French officials, and various Jesuit priests. The considerable significance of women to the Illiniwek Indian tribe comes into focus by examining their role, power, and status.

sidebar

The Illinois,  (aka Illiniwek or Illini) is pronounced as plural: (The Illinois') were a Confederacy of Indian tribes consisting of the Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Peoria, Tamarais (Tamaroa, Tamarois), Moingwena, Mitchagamie (Michigamea), Chepoussa, Chinkoa, Coiracoentanon, Espeminkia, Maroa, and Tapouara tribes that were of the Algonquin family. They spoke Iroquoian languages. The Illinois called themselves "Ireniouaki" (the French word was Ilinwe)..  The village, La Vantum, aka Grand Village, was near today's Utica, Illinois.

Women and their place in the Illiniwek Indian tribe.

An investigation of absolute gender boundaries, complementary or secondary functions, and parity functions reveals the female role. Absolute boundaries, for example, clearly separated the gender functions. Women did not use male weapons, bows, and arrows; did not engage in raiding war or the hunt; did not use the male accent; did not eat before or with the men; did not attend councils; did not dance in such ceremonies as the calumet dance or "the discovery" at funerals for influential men; did not injure unfaithful husbands or expel them from home; did not wear male clothing, tattoos, or hairstyles; did not marry more than one spouse at a time; did not live in the house with men during menstruation or childbirth; did not bury other women with great ceremony; and did not torture prisoners until after men had finished. Women, however, did function effectively in a system their society reserved for them.

The labor requirements of the tribe's economic system encouraged the development of complementary or supportive gender roles. Men hunted and fished and roamed far from their villages, and the women gardened and gathered fruits and nuts and remained close to their homes. Europeans saw Illiniwek men as "all gentlemen" because they did no physical labor in their villages. Instead, they danced, gambled, feasted, engaged in religious activities, and manufactured bows and arrows. They earned status by becoming superior warriors and hunters-activities, which required great strength and endurance.

On the other hand, women raised children, gathered wood, tended their homes, tilled fields, prepared food, and dressed skins. They did not work harder than men, although the French thought they did, and they did not even work as hard as European colonial women. The tribe's very survival, nevertheless, actually depended on female labor during those times when hunters were unsuccessful.

Women served in secondary rather than complementary gender roles in such activities as warfare, hunting, and certain ceremonies usually associated with men. Because females were denied access to bows and arrows, for example, they did not participate in raids, the military expeditions of limited size which traveled stealthily and ambushed individuals or small groups of the enemy. Armed with clubs, however, women joined men in joint warfare expeditions in which hundreds of participants might noisily travel hundreds of miles to attack enemy villages.

Females also engaged in communal hunting, but weapons restrictions limited their participation here, too. The generosity requirements the culture placed on men, which obligated them to surrender possessions upon request, may explain why women would travel to the site of the hunter's kill and then skin, butcher, and carry the meat back to the village. Even during communal buffalo hunts, limited customs women to preparing and transporting the meat.

Several ceremonies, including a game of Lacrosse and the calumet dance, also included women as secondary performers. The summer communal buffalo hunt began with a ritual game of Lacrosse, but only some women played because the game was physical and dangerous. These female participants played the game in a defensive capacity. The women's part was also limited in the peace and recognition ceremony known as the calumet dance. Women with fine voices sang in choruses, including men, during the calumet dance, but they did not dance.

Kaskaskia Tribe of the Illiniwek.

Illiniwek women enjoyed parity with men in one of the most important venues, access to supernatural power. Young girls sought, as did boys, the protection of a manitou (the "essence of supernatural power" represented by a bird, buffalo, or other animals) by participating in a vision quest or dream-fast exercise. Women also became shamans, or priests and healers, and several times each year, both female and male shamans sponsored a public ceremony. The priesthood members demonstrated their killing and curing powers during the rites. Shamans were obeyed as agents of supernatural power who could cause death because the Illiniwek feared them. The power of female shamans extended to the entire community.

Women clearly exercised power within the female sphere of activity. For example, women-led age groups of females are responsible for fulfilling such customs as burying females. Father Jacques Gravier, a Jesuit priest, referred to "Those who govern the young women and the grown girls..." While women did not ordinarily wield leadership in arenas reserved for men and therefore did not become chiefs, the sources identify one female civil chief for a small winter village. Her position, however, reflected the hunting successes of her male relatives.

The case of this female chief suggests that women generally enjoyed some standing but little real power beyond their own realm. It "is implausible to argue that women may have less visible prestige but an equal claim on dominance," noted anthropologist Nancy Datan, "as it must also be posited that women are content with power so subtle that its effects are difficult to detect.

It is far more parsimonious," she concluded, "though less pleasing, to concede that women have unequal access to power." While women did wield authority in their own sphere, their power in the tribe was simply not equal to that of men.

Several criteria reflected their power and established the status of Indian women: division of labor, plural marriage, marriage gift exchange, divorce, motherhood, and control over sexual activity. The complementary nature of Illiniwek work roles, where women did not hunt and men did not gather, required that everyone marry. A man's skill as a hunter determined the number of wives he might take, but his secondary wives were the first wife's sisters, nieces, and aunts; a woman did not have more than one husband at a time. Divorce was easily arranged when one or both partners agreed to live apart, but often couples worked through their problems for the sake of their children. A divorced man whose partner was blameless could expect retaliation from the members of the woman's clan if he took a replacement wife from another clan. While men and women shared the right to divorce, both parties were constrained by children and clan privileges.

Although the French saw them as promiscuous, the Illiniwek did subscribe to simple chastity. Young women were not supposed to talk with men to maintain their status as potential spouses, but many did engage in premarital sexual activity. A first wife outranked secondary wives, and the courtship process to select a first wife was indirect and most important. An absent suitor's father or uncle would lead his female relatives loaded with valuable gifts to the prospective bride's home. These gifts included kettles, guns, skins, meat, "some cloth, and sometimes a slave..."

The marriage gifts would be returned if the girl protested or if her parents or brother objected to the union. Negotiations could involve as many as three trips- each with more valuable gifts from the suitor's family. When a bride accepted a suitor, she and her relatives would travel to the groom's home with their own gifts. Although men did conduct the formal negotiations, the bride and her mother played a prominent role in the decision. The value of the marriage gift exchange delayed and frustrated poor suitors, and illustrating the value of a first wife, a husband continued to send presents to his wife's brother even after marriage. The marriage began without ceremony when the bride and groom agreed to live together.

Even married women did not control their sexual activities because their brothers, motivated by gifts, could force them into extramarital relationships. Husbands who punished or killed unfaithful wives or their lovers were often attacked by the families of the injured parties. A feud might be averted only if husbands were "to cover the dead" by providing presents to the grieving families.

Women did punish men who violated clan marriage rights, and these men accepted the discipline without retaliating. As with divorce, a widower who took another bride too quickly from a different clan could find his possessions destroyed by the female members of the original wife's family. The enforcement of clan rights reflected both the economic importance of marriage and the power of women while protecting their sphere.

Much of the female arena revolved around childbirth and child-rearing. Women were not permitted to deliver their babies in their husbands' homes, so delivery took place in the small menstrual huts nearby. New fathers honored new mothers in a ceremonial role reversal: the fathers cleaned the house, shook out the furs, and built a new fire. The Illiniwek loved their children, but the birth rate and infant mortality were low. Having a child elevated the status of a woman to the prestigious position of mother.

Mothers enjoyed complete control over youngsters because men were absent so often, but they also had full responsibility for protecting them from raiders, animals, and accidents. Diapering infants with moss and swaddling them in skins, mothers attended to their chores with infants fastened to their backs on cradleboards. As they matured, mothers encouraged youngsters to develop those skills required for adult success. While boys practiced with their weapons and ran, swam, and wrestled, girls acquired those industrious work habits which might attract desirable husbands. Motherhood involves ensuring the continuity of society.

The role and power available to the men and women in Illiniwek society determined individual status. Men were their society's ceremonial, economic, military, and political leaders. Males who expected to acquire lofty community standing could develop exceptional skills as either warriors or hunters, but the warrior's success outranked that of the hunter. The tribe acknowledged the status of individual achievers with public rituals such as the first-kill feast, the warrior's pounding-the-post ceremony, and elaborate burials. Women were ineligible for the recognition available to men from raiding or hunting.

Males earned an improved position in the community over the years because they had demonstrated their capacity to survive in a most demanding career. The enhanced prestige of this elders-most of whom was shamans-allowed them to eat before others, officiate Lacrosse games, decide the fate of war prisoners, participate in an elder's council for advising chiefs, and serve as town criers. Even with this lofty status, old men worked in the fields with the women, thus implicitly acknowledging the importance of the female contribution to the tribe's welfare.

Women earned status in a system reserved for females that reflected success in the female role. The practice of tattooing women recognized individual proficiency, and men wore tattoos illustrating the weapons employed to acquire military triumphs. It is reasonable to assume that women wore designs representing tools with which they had been successful, such as the spade, the spindle, and the ax. Implements reserved for men-bows and arrows-outranked those utilized by women.

Even though the primary male economic contribution-meat-outranked that of females, the status of women was still substantial because of the quality and quantity of the tribal diet. Without meat, the Illiniwek only thought they were starving, but female subsistence products meant the group would survive. Another factor conferring status might have been female ownership or control of their fields. The evidence for this claim is indirect, such as the female work bees required when women needed to spade up their fields, but, significantly, field ownership is not included in any list of male status criteria.

Europeans developed low opinions of Illiniwek women when they saw them engage in arduous physical labor in their villages. Control over the products of their labor, however, suggests multiple female statuses. The items in the home, those destroyed when clan marriage rights were ignored, were considered the manufacturer's property. In 1772, a Frenchman noticed that "husbands leave to the women to say as to the buying and selling" of such female manufactured trade items as dressed "deer and buffalo skins."

The labor issue is clouded by the question of ownership of the home. Although women manufactured the family home, husbands "owned" or controlled it because it was the product of more than one wife's labor. A divorced wife would have left her former husband's remaining family with a badly damaged dwelling if she had been able to remove her contribution to it. Because women controlled only part of their work product, this labor issue needs to be more to clarify the question of female status.

It is difficult to measure changes in Illiniwek social practices because the tribe endured tremendous population losses after coming into direct contact with the French in 1673; fewer Indians resulted in fewer documents concerning them. However, rather interesting adaptations became observable for several marriage customs. For example, before meeting Europeans, Illiniwek men had become eligible to marry at age twenty-five but married at age thirty; women married at about twenty-five. After completing the French, however, men married before the age of twenty and women before eighteen. This circumstance caused Delliette to report, "The old men (the conservators of tribal traditions) say that the French have corrupted them." The tribe also experienced a decline in husbands taking more than one wife and in the rate of divorce. Finally, another Frenchman declared the number negligible a quarter of a century after Delliette noticed that unfaithful wives were numerous. These modifications indicate that contact with Europeans changed women's roles.

The industrious role and considerable power of Illiniwek women established their high status in the Illiniwek tribe. They attained social standing by bearing and nurturing children, constructing and tending homes, gathering wood and preparing food, dressing skins and tilling fields. They wielded power in their female venue and in their role as shamans. Marriage customs, gift exchange, and divorce options also testified to their lofty position in the tribe. Limits on female activity, however, illustrated the greater power and status of men. Women did enjoy considerable influence and standing in a system reserved for them, but they were ineligible for the higher-status positions available for men.

The subordinate position of females was emphasized in those conventions which prohibited their use of weapons reserved for men, their absence from raiding and the hunt, and the second-class status of their subsistence contributions. However, the most important of the elements limiting female power and status was their lack of control over their own sexual activity.

When men made derogatory comments about women, they declared that the female role was inappropriate. They exhibited the inveterate male habit of gendering male enemies as female or effeminate. Despite the derisive comments of men, however, Illiniwek women understood even if the French did not that, they were the slaves of the men.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.