The checkered past of Cave-In-Rock on the Ohio River in Hardin County, Illinois.

Hardin County in Illinois was formed in 1839, but the natural centerpiece of the whole county was first seen by European eyes a hundred years before. In 1739, the French explorer & surveyor M. Chaussegros de Léry charted the course of the Ohio River, found, mapped and named it "Caverne Dans Le Roc" or, in English, the Cave-In-Rock.

The cave had, of course, been in existence for thousands of years. It was worn into the bluffs by Ohio River flooding, probably extensively during the melting following the Wisconsin Ice Age, which ended about 10,000 years ago. The effects of the 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquake (7 and 7.5 on today's Richter scale) may have further contributed to the formation of the cave.

Many caves are the topics of stories told about the happenings in and around the premise. Possibly no cave, though, has more stories and legends told about it than this cave! Cave-In-Rock outlaws, pirates and counterfeiters reined for fifty years beginning in 1790. As is true with most legends, facts are few; sometimes, even local folklore is hard to document in any credible way. However, legend holds that notorious counterfeiters Philip Alston and John Duff used the cave as a meeting place in the 1790s. 

Through a relationship with Duff, Samuel Mason moved his base of operations to Cave-In-Rock in 1797. Mason had been a Revolutionary War militia captain and later served as an associate judge in Pennsylvania before moving his family to Kentucky. After arriving in Kentucky, Samuel Mason became the leader of a gang of river pirates and highwaymen outlaws who wreaked havoc around Cave-In-Rock, Stack Island (a point on the Mississippi River about 200 miles north of New Orleans) and along the Natchez Trace. Mason's gang's practice was to rob travelers going down the rivers. They also pirated boats carrying merchandise and supplies down the rivers. It was common practice for men to move supplies down the rivers, abandon the flatboats at the end of their journey, then return home along the Natchez Trace. If the Mason gang missed robbing them on one of the great rivers, they'd have yet another opportunity to rob them on land along the Natchez Trace.

Samuel Mason used Cave-In-Rock as a central point of his base of criminal operations, which stretched all the way to New Orleans. His tavern in the cave created an easy lure for travelers to stop as they passed, but the combination of the gambling den, brothel and refuge for criminals made it the perfect trap.

Micajah "Big" Harpe, born Joshua Harper (c.1748-1799), and Wiley "Little" Harpe, born William Harpe (c.1750-1804)

Some believe that the first recorded mass murderer in American history might have spent time at Cave-In-Rock. Micajah and Wiley Harpe, known as "Big" and "Little" Harpe, were active during the last decade of the 18th Century. 

Known as the Harpe brothers, the two started out life as first cousins.

The Harpe brothers spread killing and despair wherever they went. While they operated primarily in Kentucky and Tennessee, there are some accounts of their horrible activities on the Illinois side of the Ohio River. 

"Big" Harpe was the first of these three bandits to lose his head to captors, but eventually, Samuel Mason and "Little" Harpe were captured, killed and beheaded. Their heads and skulls were left strategically in plain view to deter future outlaws. Their departure only made way for the next generation of thieves and counterfeiters!

In the early 1800s, the Sturdivant Gang and the Ford's Ferry Gang appeared in the region. The Sturdivant Gang originated in Colonial Connecticut. By 1810, third-generation counterfeiter Roswell S. Sturdivant led his gang, primarily based in St. Clair County, Illinois, but also occupied a fortress nearby Pope County. The Ford's Ferry Gang had a more local foundation. James Ford (1770-1833) was a business and community leader in Kentucky and Southern Illinois on both sides of the Ohio River. The other side of his dual personality was that of a gang leader and his bandit's high-jacked flatboats for decades!

Isaiah Potts and his wife Polly, who owned a tavern, Pott's Inn, near Ford's Ferry, are two of the most colorful characters in our story. Ferry goers would depart the boat and take the short trek to the tavern as they ventured inland. It was a common occurrence for the travelers to be attacked, robbed and killed along the route to the tavern. 

This photograph of Pott's Inn was taken in the 1920s by Cave-In-Rock.

Although one descendant of Isaiah and Polly believes their behavior has been highly exaggerated over the years, one story seems to live on. Did they murder their son when he returned after being gone for years? While there is no credible evidence, legend holds that young Billy Potts left home after being caught by locals in the act of murder. Young Potts changed his ways and prospered. He returned home after many years, but his parents didn't recognize their well-dressed son, lured him to the infamous spring for a drink, and robbed and murdered him. As they had often done, they buried him in a shallow nearby grave. The next day, friends of Billy Potts came looking for him and described having seen him the day he got off the ferry. Isaiah and Polly realized what they had done. They dug up his grave and found a young man bearing a birthmark just like their son had. If it is true, it is a sad ending.

Happily, outlaw folklore isn't the only history associated with Cave-In-Rock! Although not too highly revered today as a highly educated researcher or author, in 1833, Josiah Priest wrote about cave paintings he observed at Cave-In-Rock. Priest described the paintings as plants, animals, humans, the sun, the moon, and stars. He described the humans as wearing clothing similar to the early Greeks or Romans. He wrote, "On the Ohio, twenty miles below the mouth of the Wabash, is a cavern, in which are found many hieroglyphics, and representations of such delineations as would induce the belief that their authors were, indeed, comparatively refined and civilized."

In 1848, another writer visited the cave. William Pidgeon was a well-known antiquarian and archaeologist. He became famous for his 1858 work, Traditions of Dee-Coo-Dah and Antiquarian Research, although at a later time, his work was critically deemed to be partly almost science fiction. He described the curious pictographs at Cave-In-Rock as humans that looked like ancient Egyptians. Pidgeon wrote about his belief, because of artifacts he had found, that an entire network of a mound-builder race was occupying sites in Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota. At the time, many in the science community made fun of him. In the past 150 years, history and prehistory have unfolded, and we now know that the Ohio River Scenic Byway region was such a place!

The pictographs described by Pidgeon and Priest have long been destroyed, but more recent graffiti tells the stories of other visitors to the cave. In 1913, the Ohio River flooded, and B.C. and Cole paddled his boat into the cave, stood up and carved his name into the cave ceiling.

In 1929, Illinois bought 64.5 acres of land, including the cave. Additional parcels were purchased later, and all combined form the current 200-acre Cave-In-Rock State Park. The beautiful park stretches from the Ohio River's shoreline to the top of a 60-foot-tall bluff. It is maintained by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, and the lodge and cabins are managed by Marty Kaylor, a Cave-In-Rock lifetime resident. Kaylor recently reported that IDNR reported that in 2012, 514,000 visited Cave-In-Rock State Park, and Kaylor said the number significantly increased over the 2010 number of 227,000 people.

ADDITIONAL READING:

Mass Murderers in the Illinois Frontier: The Harpes Brothers.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Wonderland (Amusement) Park, Danville, Illinois / Tilton, Illinois

Wonderland Park was built circa 1903 by William B. McKinley, chief executive of the Illinois Traction System. In 1905 the park was operated by the Danville Amusement Co. 

The park was believed to be situated on the west side of South Gilbert Street, just north of the intersection with Tilton Road. The park has also been described as being along Tilton Road near the United Autoworkers Hall and the Golden Oil Company. The third suggested location was between Wayside Drive and Parker Avenue on Tilton Road.

Wonderland Amusement Park was only open on Sundays. The round trip fare was 10 cents. Admission was free if you presented your round trip ticket for the interurban train. There were baseball games during the week but none of the rides or other attractions were open.

Note the misspelling of "Shoot the Chutes" on this postcard.

Rides included a roller coaster, a merry-go-round and other carnival-type rides. Between 1905 and 1907, the park was enlarged to about 15 acres. An old theater was enlarged and remodeled to accommodate about 1,000 persons. A restaurant, a funhouse, a small zoo, a bandstand, billiards and pool hall, bowling alley, refreshment stand, and other attractions were added.

Wonderland Park had a base ball park at the rear of the grounds. There was a Minor League Base Ball team (class D), named the "Danville Old Soldiers" listed as playing in Wonderland Park in 1906.

The name Wonderland Park was changed to Wayside Park in 1907.

An article in the Danville Daily Democrat of June 16, 1907, describes it this way: 

"With pretty flowers, green grass, newly painted buildings, a handsome merry-go-round, which has cost $3,000 to place, practically new roller-coaster, a penny arcade not excelled outside of Chicago, a handsome new Nickelodeon, a theater filled with the stellar lights of comic opera, four additional small shows, cages of fine animals from the provinces of Brazil, eating-stands and dozens of new features which have been added to the old ones which stood in Wonderland Park last year, the new Wayside far overshadows anything ever shown in this or any other city in the state, even twice the size of Danville."

According to an article in the Danville Press-Democrat, Wayside Park was dismantled in April of 1909

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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Thank you Leann Stine of the Danville Public Library, for adding information about Wonderland Park. 

Marguerite Stitt Church, Congresswoman.

After years of assisting the political career of her husband, Ralph Church, and working for various charities, Marguerite Stitt Church won election to the House of Representatives to succeed Congressman Church after his death in 1950. Congresswoman Church sought and gained a seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, traveling to more than 40 countries and seeing firsthand how U.S. foreign aid was employed in them.

Marguerite Stitt was born in New York City on September 13, 1892, the daughter of William and Adelaide Stitt. She developed an interest in foreign countries at an early age when her parents took her abroad each summer as a child. She attended St. Agatha School in New York City and, later, as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, earned an A.B. in psychology with a minor in economics and sociology from Wellesley College in 1914. After graduation, she taught a biblical history course at Wellesley for a year before enrolling in a masters program in economics and sociology at Columbia University. She completed her graduate degree in 1917 and worked for a year as a consulting psychologist with the State Charities Aid Association of New York City. 

In 1918, she traveled to Chicago and met Illinois state legislator Ralph Church. The couple married that December and settled in Evanston, Illinois, where they raised three children: Ralph, William, and Marjory. Marguerite Church worked in a succession of organizations devoted to family and children’s welfare. In 1934, Ralph Church was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives to the first of seven terms in a seat representing the densely populated suburbs just north of Chicago. Marguerite embarked with him on investigative trips, making her own speaking tour on behalf of Republican presidential campaigns in 1940 and 1944. During and after World War II, at her husband’s request, she made several inspection tours of Europe. In Washington she served as president of the Congressional Club, a group of wives and daughters of Members of Congress, the Cabinet, and the Supreme Court. But she later recalled that while he was alive she never seriously considered a political career. “My political life was one of adaptation to his life,” Church observed. Nevertheless, her experience as a congressional spouse was critical to her later success, making her “a realist as regards the practical operation of Congress.”

Ralph Church died suddenly of heart failure during a House committee hearing in March 1950. Shortly thereafter, GOP leaders in Illinois persuaded Marguerite Church to run for her husband’s vacant seat. “If a man had been nominated and made a mistake, you would have said he is stupid,” Church said at the time. “If I make a mistake, you will say she is a woman. I shall try never to give you reason to say that.” In the general election that fall, she defeated Democrat Thomas F. Dolan with 74 percent of the vote. In her next five re–election bids, she was never seriously challenged, winning between 66 and 72 percent of the vote. “The [local GOP] organization, of course, never considered anybody else after I got in,” Church recalled. “They just went along.” Much of her success was due to her attention to district needs. She returned to Illinois frequently, opened her home to voters, and personally dictated replies to an average of 600 letters per week. Her cardinal rule was if anyone came asking for help, “never let yourself ask, ‘Is he a Republican or a Democrat?’…We never made any political distinction whatsoever, and I think that was one reason that in the long run people began to trust me.” Church’s independence also earned her the respect of colleagues.

When Church took her seat in the 82nd Congress (1951–1953), she was assigned to the Committee on Expenditures in Executive Departments (later Government Operations), where she chaired a special subcommittee investigating President Dwight Eisenhower’s reorganization of the Council of Economic Advisers. Church was instrumental in helping to pass recommendations offered by the Second Hoover Commission on efficiency in government. In 1957, Church supported the Civil Rights Bill. She also was one of the first Members to bring African–American guests into the House dining room, when she treated six young newsboys to lunch. Capitol staff told her she would never get through the door. “Well,” she replied, the boys have worked hard selling newspapers “and I certainly do not intend to tell them they can’t luncheon in the dining room of their own Capitol.” The group ate lunch in the dining room. Though not “militant about a woman’s rights,” Church supported women’s rights legislation, including the Equal Pay Bill. She encouraged women entering politics to think of themselves as public servants rather than advocates of feminism. She believed in “equal protection under the law for both men and women, period.”

Church left Government Operations in the 84th Congress (1955–1957) to focus exclusively on her Foreign Affairs Committee assignment (which she had received two years earlier). After winning re–election in 1952, she had been offered a spot on the prestigious Appropriations Committee, where her husband once sat and, in fact, where only one woman had previously served. The committee chairman made the offer, but Church declined. “I’m awfully sorry,” she replied. “I’ve spent all summer trying to persuade people that it would be a loss to the country if they didn’t put me on the Foreign Affairs Committee. That has become my major interest.” She later claimed that she did not want to accept an assignment that, she believed, was made partly as a tribute to her husband. She served on Foreign Affairs until she retired from Congress.

Church’s chief interests and influence flowed from her work on the Foreign Affairs Committee, where she was assigned to the Subcommittee on Foreign Economic Policy. She was a skeptic of large foreign–aid bills appropriated for many of America’s Cold War allies in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. “The idea that you can win friends and influence people merely by pouring out millions—and it’s amounted by this time to billions—never caught my attention or my faith,” she recalled. As a member of the Subcommittee on the Far East and the Pacific, she traveled widely to witness firsthand the implementation of American programs. “Some officials protested that this was no place for a lady,” Church told a reporter. “I told them I was not a lady. I was a Member of Congress.” In 1959, while Ranking Republican Member on the Foreign Economic Policy Subcommittee, she logged more than 40,000 miles in 17 countries. Her experience with a group of tribal women in a remote sub–Saharan African village shaped her view of how foreign aid should be targeted. “These women, I found, didn’t want guns; they didn’t want atomic plants; they didn’t want navies,” Church said. “They wanted someone who could show them the next step up from where they were to where they’d like to be.”

During the first year of the John F. Kennedy administration, that memory factored into her championing of the Peace Corps, which sought to provide educational and technological support to developing countries through the work of trained college–aged American volunteers. During a September 14, 1961, debate, seven–term Representative H.R. Gross of Iowa launched a verbal diatribe against the Peace Corps program. Gross described it as a “Kiddie Korps,” reminiscent of Hitler’s youth corps in Nazi Germany, and a “utopian brainstorm” that would exacerbate the U.S. deficit. In response, Congresswoman Church entered the well of the House to speak on behalf of the program, recounting her numerous trips abroad where she had seen foreign–aid dollars misspent and misdirected in the battle for the developing world. “Here is something which is aimed right,” Church told colleagues, “which is American, which is sacrificial—and which above all can somehow carry at the human level, to the people of the world, what they need to know; what it is to be free; what it is to have a next step and be able to take it; what it is to have something to look forward to, in an increase of human dignity and confidence.” A GOP colleague recalled that Church’s floor speech was critical in persuading a number of reluctant Republicans to support the measure. “You quite literally could see people who had been uncertain or perhaps who had already decided to vote against the Peace Corps sit there, listen to her very quietly and start to rethink,” Representative Catherine May of Washington State said.” Later that afternoon, the Peace Corps legislation passed the House by a wide margin, 288 to 97.

In 1962, as an advocate of mandatory retirement for Members of Congress and facing reapportionment in her district, Church set her own example by retiring at age 70 after the close of the 87th Congress (1961–1963) in January 1963. She worked on behalf of the Republican presidential campaigns of Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Richard M. Nixon in 1968. She later served on the boards of directors for the Girl Scouts of America and the U.S. Capitol Historical Society. In 1971, President Nixon selected Church to serve on the planning board for the White House Conference on Aging. 

Marguerite Church resided in Evanston, Illinois, where she died on May 26, 1990 at 97 years old.

By History, Art & Archives
Editor; Neil Gale, Ph.D.