Madison County Genealogical Society

Minutes of the Meeting - May 11, 2017

The May 2017 meeting of the Madison County Genealogical Society was held at the Edwardsville Public Library on Thursday, May 11, at 7:00 pm.

President, Robert Ridenour, called the meeting to order.

The following is the Treasurer's report for the month of April:

GIFT MEMBERSHIPS AVAILABLE

Do you have a family member that is interested in (or even obsessed with) genealogy? A membership in the Madison County Genealogical Society would be a very thoughtful gift. A gift card will be sent to the recipient of any gift membership.

The following memberships are available:
Individual/Family Annual Membership $25.00
Patron Annual Membership $35.00
Life Membership $300.00

Contact our Secretary, Petie Hunter, at [email protected], about a gift membership.

May Meeting

 

On May 11, 2017, a program titled The National Road was presented by Mary Truitt. Mary is a retired Home Economics teacher who lives in Vandalia. She volunteers at the National Road Interpretative Center and the Fayette County Museum - Tourism. She was in period dress and described a trip on the National Road from Pennsylvania to Vandalia, Illinois, from the point of view of the early travelers.

 

My name is Sally Rogers and my baby is also Sally; we call her Sassy. She is very young and I had to carry her all the way. If I look familiar to you, I modeled for the Madonna of the Trail statue. Do you know about the Madonna of the Trail statues? There are twelve of them in this country. The DAR paid for them; they all match. There is one in every state the National Road goes through. The one one in Illinois is in Vandalia.

 

I’d like to take you back with me to 1750. I’m sure you don’t remember, but back in 1750, Major George Washington was sent, with the Virginia Militia, through the Indian Pass in the Appalachian Mountains near what would eventually become Cumberland, Maryland. Obviously, it was a good pass. He was sent to go find the French. He was supposed to tell the French, “Go home!” He didn’t really find the French; he could have, but they found him first. And he and many of his militia were wounded. So they hightailed it back through the pass to Virginia. So, we didn’t have the French and Indian War quite then, yet; but we did eventually.

 

England sent over a general and he came through the same pass. When he was getting ready to come, he asked for 200 Conestoga wagons with drivers and horses. Are you familiar with a Conestoga wagon? A Conestoga wagon has red wheels, a blue body, and a white top. The Conestoga has a few other things about it, too. It was built in Conestoga, Pennsylvania, on the Conestoga River, and it was pulled by Conestoga horses. The Conestoga horses are long gone and pictures of them are almost impossible to find. But from their description, they had to be something like a Percheron or a Clydesdale. A Conestoga wagon could haul three tons; they were huge. They were built for the mountains. If, in their travels, they got near the edge and a little wobbly, everything slid toward the middle of the wagon, bringing its balance back and they stayed on the trail.

 

When George Washington was out hunting the French, he came back and said, “We need roads! My men don’t need to walk through the forest all the time. They need roads to walk on.” He didn’t get any. He became President of the United States, and he still didn’t get any.

 

Thomas Jefferson became the President. Everyone asked the President, ”Tom, do you know what’s happening on our Western Coast?” He didn’t know. They said, “We are about to lose what we call Washington and Oregon to the people of Great Britain and Russia is trying to get that land that we call California. You’ve got to do something about this! You need to get your people off the East Coast and get them across the country, throughout the country, and certainly on the West Coast. By the way, these factories on the East Coast are running out of raw materials. They have used them all up and there are raw materials out there in the rest of our country. Let’s get them over here!”

 

That was enough for Tom. He went to Congress and he talked them into giving us roads. It was on March 29, 1806, that Jefferson signed the bill for the National Road. He then turned to the Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, and said “Al, build that road.”

 

And Gallatin said, “Just a minute here, President, It wasn’t very long ago that you gave me the assignment to get everything ready for the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which I did. But, my, was it expensive! And now you have just come back from making the Louisiana Purchase. What am I going to use for money?”

 

President Jefferson said, “I don’t know. But build the road!”

 

So Albert Gallatin, being a very intelligent man, stood on the edge of Washington, D.C., and looked around. He said, “Hmmm, there’s a lot of empty land in Ohio.” Ohio had just become state in 1803. Which meant the land belonged to the government. He said, “If I sell Ohio, I can build the road.” So he started selling pieces of land in Ohio. Time passed, he kept selling land. Finally, in 1811, he said, “Well, I’ve got enough money to start the road.” And he did. Lo and behold, what happened in 1812? So we rested from building the National Road because we had to stop and fight the War of 1812.

 

It’s debatable in the history books as to when they returned to the construction of the road. All we are positive of is that it made it all the way to Wheeling, Virginia, by 1818, the same year that Illinois became a state.

 

In the meantime, I met my husband and married him and we bought a farm in Ohio; I don’t know whether we bought it from Albert Gallatin or not, but we had a farm in Ohio. Let me tell you, my husband James spent more time picking up rocks on that farm than he ever spent planting seeds. It was really bad, and he was not a happy camper.

 

Then we heard about the National Road getting to Ohio. We heard that it was white and it was beautiful. James kept talking about it. Finally, one day when he went to town, it just took him forever. I thought, “What in the world has that man done now?” He came back and he was so excited — he had driven down to the National Road! He said, “It was full of wagons and carriages and people on horseback!” He had never seen so many people in one place in his whole life. He said, “Yes it is a beautiful white road.” He asked some people standing there, “We don’t have any white rocks in the Appalachians. How did this road get to be white?”

 

“Well,” they said, “It’s this way. When they started building the road in Maryland, they gave the workers three metal rings — two, four, and six inch in diameter. The workers had to chip the rocks so they would pass through one of the three rings. The workers would bring the rocks in every morning, sell them and the rocks would be used on the road.”

 

“One morning, the superintendant was buying the rocks, all of a sudden he looked at one man and said, ‘You stole these.’ The man said, ‘I wouldn’t think of doing anything like that.’ The superintendent said, ‘Yes, you did. I bought these from you yesterday morning! Last night, you stole them back and now you’re trying to sell them to me again!’

 

The superintendent decided they had to come up with a way to prove that they had purchased the rocks. They decided to whitewash the rocks when they bought them. That’s how the National Road got to be white.

 

James came home and told me that story and he was so excited. Finally, he said, “Let’s go! Let’s move! Let’s go down to the National road and go west!” I wasn’t really sure I felt up to that; but I thought, this man has worked so hard picking up rocks on this farm maybe we should just move. So I agreed.

 

The next morning, he took our wagon to town and sold it and bought a covered wagon. He said we didn’t need any new horses; we had two good plow horses. They’d get us there; they could pull our wagon. He brought the covered wagon home and he put our farm up for sale.

 

Amazingly enough, he sold the farm! Which was wonderful! We started packing the wagon, putting in the things we thought were most necessary and trying to sell the rest. And finally, we started giving things away, if we couldn’t sell them. We got rid of everything.

 

We didn’t get in the wagon because the wagon was for stuff. The kids and I walked along behind the wagon along with Molly, our cow, and James walked along side the horses. And off we went. It wasn’t too long before Molly got her hoof caught in the rocks. So we had to stop and Little James and I had to pull Molly’s hoof out of the rocks. We went a little further and Little James caught his foot between the rocks and we had to stop and take care of that. Sassy couldn’t walk so I was carrying her; I was wearing the biggest shoes I owned, so we were doing pretty good. We kept going. Everybody seemed to be stopping and pulling alongside the road. We stopped at about 4 p.m. and James grabbed his gun and he went into the woods and he got a couple rabbits. He brought those back and I prepared them that night for supper. We had leftover rabbit for breakfast and made rabbit sandwiches and took them for lunch. You had to use the meat because you didn’t have any methods of preservation.

 

We kept going and every evening James would go out into the woods. If he got big game, like a deer, we would invite all the families to come and eat with us that night. You had to eat it as soon as possible, and maybe have a little left for the next meal. We were doing well. As the days went on, other men would get deer and we would eat with them. The people on the road were just great! They were so friendly and they were always ready to help you. Even the people in town were tremendous also. If you needed anything, they were there.

 

I didn’t tell you about this when I was talking about the Conestogas, and I should tell you now. I told you they were big. They were pretty fast and had bells on them. Those bells were just wonderful. At least one horse pulling every Conestoga wagon had bells attached to his collar. Those bells would ring and it was said that those horses were setting up a good rhythm with those bells. When the other wagons heard those bells, they knew to get out of the way because those Conestogas were so big they couldn’t stop in a hurry.

 

The drivers had no money and they only carried stuff … manufactured items or produce or whatever … only stuff. If anything broke down on the wagon or on a horse, they’d have to stop. If they had no money, how were they going to pay to get things fixed? They’d pay for it with a bell! If they were going along and didn’t have any trouble, they’d flag a rider down and ask, “When you get to the next town, would you go to my stop, please, and tell them, ‘I’ll be there with bells on!’” That’s where that saying comes from. They knew that wagon was going to be on time.

 

We went on and the next evening James said, “We never did figure out where we were going.” We talked about it and he said, “You know, everybody on the road thinks they’re going to Vandalia, Illinois.” That’s where the National Road was going. We said, “We might as well go with everybody else. If we just can’t make it to Vandalia, we can stop wherever we need to.” That’s what we decided to do.

 

The next morning we got up and we started down the road and all of a sudden we found a sign along the road. It said “Vandalia.” James said, “Now wait a minute. We couldn’t have traveled while we were sleeping and we certainly haven’t spent that much time on the road this morning to get to Illinois. We’re still in Ohio.” So they checked that out and, sure enough, it was Vandalia, Ohio. That was a little strange; but they started asking questions.

 

They found out that there had been a town called Herman ten miles north of the National Road. And the people of Herman said, “This is terrible! We are never going to get anybody to come and live in our town. They’re all down there on the National Road.” They put their heads together and said, “Let’s go to the National Road.” So they took their wagons and whatever they had and made the ten mile trip down to the National Road and set up a new town. Someone said, “Do we have to call it Herman?” They decided they didn’t have to call it Herman, but said, “Since everybody thinks they’re going to Vandalia, let’s call it Vandalia. Maybe they’ll be tired enough when they get here, they’ll decide to stay here.” That’s how Vandalia, Ohio, got its name.

 

We didn’t stop there that day. We just kept going and we weren’t too far from the Indiana line. All of a sudden we weren’t walking on dirt! We were walking on something that was firm and smooth. The horses picked up speed and so did we. Then we found out this was called macadam. Well, you call it blacktop. It was nothing more than chipped rock with oil on it. This new road took us to Richmond, Indiana, and two miles on the other side, where it went back to dirt.

 

The bill for the National Road said the road had to go through the capitol cities of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. Just before we got to Indianapolis, we found more of this wonderful road. When we got into Indianapolis, I had never seen so many buggies, wagons, and horses in my whole life. I didn’t think we would ever get through that town. Ultimately, we did. When we got out on the other side of Indianapolis, we lost the good road again.

 

The towns were further apart; there were more people on the road but no dwellings. We went on. Days passed and I looked down the road and it looked there was a house right in the middle of the road! Isn’t that the dumbest thing you’ve ever seen! This is supposed to be the straightest road ever. Sure enough, it was a house. It seems the Federal government offered this man a goodly sum of money to move his house and he refused. They got mad and just built the road right around his house. All of the wagons and horses just went right around his house.

 

We went on. I asked James, “Why do we have all these turns?” We kept turning and turning. The people were so anxious to have this road and having to wait for money and then having to wait for the war, they went out and started building the road themselves. They either couldn’t read what the surveyors had written or they didn’t try. Someone decided that an “S” curve was stronger than a regular curve. So all these towns that had their roads positioned so they did not meet the National Road evenly had these “S” curves. That’s why to this day they are removing “S” curves on the National Road.

 

We heard water. Lo and behold! There was the Wabash River! Our wagon would float. The Conestogas didn’t float; they just rolled right at the bottom of the river and rolled right on. We floated across the river and our horses could swim. We got to the other bank and went up. It was wonderful!

 

There we were in Illinois. I looked around and said, “My gosh! This grass is so tall! It’s taller than James; it’s taller than the horses!” It was the tallest grass I’ve ever seen in my whole life. I walked into the grass and I said, “Oh, this is wonderful! This grass is the first privacy a lady had during the trip on the road!” I really appreciated the grass in Illinois!

 

We went on and we came to Greenup. William Greenup was the superintendent building the road here in Illinois. They had built a settlement and called it Greenup. You could get your supplies and tools that you needed there. They were standing out in the middle of the road trying to get people to come to work on the road.

 

James said, “We’ve overspent our budget. I think I can work and raise the money we overspent and we can still get to Vandalia before the snow flies.” So James agreed to work on the road.

 

The first day the kids and I sat with the wagon. I tried to think of things to keep the kids happy and I thought, “This is terrible!” I noticed the workers were pulling sandwiches out of their pockets for lunch. I thought these men are not happy with that. I started thinking and when James came in that evening, I said, “I’m going to open a restaurant.” He said, “You’re going to do what?” I said, “Open a restaurant. These men aren’t getting proper food.”

 

The next morning, James left. I gave the kids something to do, and I flipped the bottom of the wagon down and I took out what food I had and cooked it. It smelled really good and all the men working close by were really looking. When I said, “It’s time for lunch!” they were there. They really enjoyed it, and they paid for their lunch. From then on, I cooked everyday for their lunch. After two weeks, James said, “You know, with both of us working, we’ve earned back everything we’ve spent. Let’s get going again.”

 

I closed my restaurant and he quit working on the road and off we went down the road. We saw one building and two cows; there just wasn’t much to see in Illinois. That’s why they were having so much trouble finding somebody to work on the road. Shortly after all of that, we were standing looking at all the wetlands and the river. James said, “I think that’s the Kaskaskia River. Because you see way over there, I see a bridge.” And sure enough, there was a covered bridge.

 

That night, we got our best clothes out. The next morning, we got everybody all dressed up, went across that wetland, and right over that covered bridge. Sure enough, we were in Vandalia, Illinois. Everybody seemed so happy to see us. They had to be because Vandalia was built for government, but in the meantime, the government had left Vandalia and gone to Springfield. If it hadn’t been for the people on the National Road, Vandalia would have died. So they were happy to see us.

 

The next day, James went out and bought a farm, and we spent the rest of our time right there in Vandalia.


This presentation was well received and provoked many questions.

 

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