The Sweetin House
Sweetin House also known as the Hartwell Ranch House, is the most imposing of all the limestone houses. The woodwork was all walnut. On the third floor was a ballroom that he used for dances on holidays. Azariah Sweetin, stockman from Kentucky, earlier a stonemason in England, started building the house in 1848 with the help of a Mr Wolley also a stone mason. The basement and one wall of the first story were completed then construction halted for a period of eight years for an unknown reason.
According to a neighbor the Sweetins the family moved into the house in July of 1862 14 years after construction had began. Commodious this house must have been then, 28 by 60 feet in size with three feet thick walls at the base. The home had a natural stream running though the basement to help cool and provide water to the home. The evidence of this stream can still be seen today running through the ruins.
July 4, 1862 the Sweetins hold a house worming inviting friends and neighbors to their third floor ballroom. It was during sort of a military drill which was custom for the day that two young neighboring farmhands, Henson and Isham were partaking.
Isham seemed to be getting the worst of it when his father advised him “bite him.” Hanson was outraged at this violation and the two men then quarreled. Isham stooped over Henson, thinking Isham was picking up something to throw, drew a knife and stabbed Hanson in the back.
Hanson was arrested for murder and was later reduced to manslaughter. The Carrollton press never covers the trial. Some say that Hanson joined the war and was never taken to trial.
For many years it has been said that the ghost of the young man appears on the hearth. His blood stained the hearth in the outline of his body. They were never able to remove the stain, and it is said that it is still there to this day.
Mr. Sweetin had done quite well in cattle trading before the war, he didn't trust banks so he started hiding gold coins in or around mansion. No one was sure where it was hidden and Azariah lost his memory due to being thrown from his horse and hitting his head in 1871 at the age of 50.
Try as they might the family was never able to find the hidden money. Sweetin’s daughter is told to be the first person to be housed in the Greene County Poor Farm.
For many years people have speculated were the money was hidden. Though no one ever reported having found the money, we can assume it was found by two of Sweetin’s farm hands who disappeared shortly after Sweetins death.
The land was purchased by Cyrus Hartwell, land owner and railroad developer of Hoopeston, Illinois. Hartwell or members of his family occupied the house until his death in 1894, when his vast holdings were divided and sold.
Mary Hartwell Catherwood of Hoopeston, 1847-1902, included stories of the Lower Illinois Valley in her versatile writing career - of "corn belt local color" and the French in the new world. She gathered material for her stories as she visited her Uncle Cyrus Hartwell, in the ranch house in the 1880's and early 1890's.
Clendenen House
George W. Clendenen was born in Greenebrier County, Virginia about 1779. He moved to Kentucky where he was married to Mary Reynolds, then to St. Charles Missouri, arriving in a one-horse Dearborn Wagon. In the spring of 1819, he and his family moved on to Greene County, Illinois, near the point where the Macoupin Creek breaks through the bluff in Woodville Township. According to the best information they were the first settlers in Woodville Township.. Here they built a Log Cabin and son Hazard Perry attended school mostly taught by his father. George died in 1841 and Mary in 1869. It is rumored that Blackhawk a famous Indian Chief was a frequent guest of the Clendenen Family when he was in the area.
Though it is unclear exactly when the limestone home was built the Greene County Atlas of 1873 shows Hazard as the owner of the Stone House, and the largest land owner in the township where he had come in to possession of 1700 acres of bottom ground.. Hazard lived in the stone house until his death in in 1880. The home then passed on to George Schild who lived in it till 1911 when the wood frame house was built.
He early became identified with the whig party, and so continued until it disorganized, when he joined the ranks of the republican party, and two of his family, Oscar C., and Robert King, aided in the preservation of the Union, in the late war, and Mr. Clendenen was one of the strong supporters of the Union cause. Mrs. Clendenen died on Dec. 5, 1862, and Mr. Clendenen survived her until Nov. 20, 1880, both being buried at the old homestead.
Theodore and Mary Koster bought the house in 1943 and it was while in their owner ship that the word famous Koster Archeological site was discovered on the property.
Koster Site
American Indians used this site in the lower Illinois River valley with relatively few interruptions from 8,700 years ago until around 800 years ago. Evidence spanning 300 or more generations of American life was documented at the site through years of archaeological field work and study in the 1970s.
Artifacts from one of the deepest levels of the excavation (circa 8,500 years ago) document the beginnings of a more settled Archaic way of life. Many important discoveries were made here, including some of the oldest evidence of the use of ground stone for food preparation, the establishment of a cemetery for deceased members of the community, and the presence of domesticated dogs.
As one of the earliest cemeteries in eastern North America, Koster provided evidence that Early Archaic people had special rituals for burying the dead, including carefully positioning them in prepared oval pits.
Middle Archaic cemeteries were established near the village and on a bluff crest overlooking the Illinois River valley. Differences in treatment of the dead based on age and sex suggest differences in social status.
A variety of ground-stone tools were found in the oldest camps at Koster including axes, adzes for woodworking, metates and manos for food grinding, and hammer stones for stone tool production. These tools represent many different activities typically found in long-term or often revisited camps. Visit the Illinois State Museum online at www.museum.state.il.us.
Gates House
Samuel Gates (1839-1864) was the owner of the house site at the time of its completion in 1830. The original land grant was made in 1821 to Hazen Bedel, who sold it to Ruben Brush in 1823. Brush in turn sold it to Samuel Gates in 1826. Samuel Gates is known to have entered Calhoun County, and later owned land in Sec. 9 Richwoods Township now Jersey County. His move to Buffdale Township in 1826 making himself a neighbor of David Woolley.
A Jersey County paper states that David Wolley was the builder of the house. Wooley was a millwright in New York. In 1822 he came west to Columbiana. Where he settled and lived until his death in 1861. Wolley could have started building the house for one owner in 1822 and finished it for Gates in 1830. A ledger in the possession of the Gates family lists items which seem to related to the finishing this house.
At an early age Gates married a Miss Emerson, who was born in Windsor, Vt., and was a relative of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
In July of 1832 Phebe, Gates daughter married Mr, Jacob Strawn his first wife having died in December of 1831 near their home in Jacksonville.
Samuel Gates enlisted in the 61st Illinois Infantry Company A and fought in the Civil War. Gates in buried in the Eldred Cemetery along the Scenic Bluff Road.
An October 28, 1830, acticle in the Jersey County News annoinces the gift of the house and farm to Mrs. Leo Smith of Jerseyville from her father, Henry Shafer of Carrollton. Smith gave the house its inscribed name “WHITESTONE.”
The Russell House
The Bluffdale Home was built in 1828 by John Russell . It is a limestone home built from the bluffs of the Illinois River Valley. John Russell (1793-1865) was born on July 31, 1793, to John Russell and Lucretia Preston. He became a reputable writer having his temperance piece “The Venomous Worm,” published in the McGuffey Reader Collection - Fourth Readers. He married Laura Ann Spencer on Oct. 25, 1818. Their families were some of the earliest settlers of Greene County. He also taught at several schools in the area. His schools were even patronized by the children of some of the best families in St. Louis, for the reason that at that time (1828) St. Louis had no school equal to the Russell Institute, which was about seventy miles from that city. Russell’s home was the first Post Office in Greene county. The home still contains most of the original materials used to construct the property. Electricity was added in 1943; plumbing was added in 1955. The home contains six original fireplaces that are all still in working order. An addition was added in 1963, which now contains the current kitchen.
The home was named from a poem that John Russell wrote. The Russell family has owned the home for six generations. Bill Hobson the current owner is John Russell's great-great grandson. Local lore states that Charles Dickens was a guest, as well as Abraham Lincoln of the family at the house. Joseph Smith, a prominent Morman, who was killed in Nauvoo also stayed at the home. The Hobson's keep a piece of the Nauvoo temple in the Bluffdale Home. A story by Russell "The Mormoness; or Trials of Mary Maverick, a Narrative of Real Events," was based on the experiences of Levi Merrick. This tale of Mormon suffering was "probably one of the first fictionized treatments of the Mormon theme."
The home is currently a popular summer vacation area, where families can stay in cabins. If you are interested in vacationing at Bluffdale, please visit www.bluffdalevacationfarm.com for more information.
Eldred House
Born in 1796 in Connecticut Ward Eldred had his eye on Illinois while it was still a territory. He and his cousin Swift traveled by foot from their home in New York’s Mohawk valley to Illinois in 1818 in the months just before statehood, surveying land in northern Madison County (presently Greene County ) before returning to New York. Although the Eldreds were not closely associated with the Russells, Robleys, and Spencers, important early settlers of Greene County who hailed from the Bennington area of Vermont, they held those New Englander’s antislavery views. The Eldreds had waited for assurances that Illinois would not enter the union as a slave state before committing themselves to moving west. A letter from Madison County resident George Churchill to Swift Eldred, dated 1818, addresses this concern. Churchill had made the acquaintance to Swift during the Eldred visit, and informed Swift that the state constitutional convention has “decided against slavery in general,” though the presence of previously owned slaves was as yet undecided. Churchill is optimistic about the prospects for Yankee settlement; he hopes for “Yankee Fashion” ballot- based elections and for ridding the new state of the “little remnant of slavery.”
Ward married his first of four wives in January, 1819 and promptly returned to west central Illinois with his brother Elon and a herd of sheep the two had driven from Ohio. In March 1820, his father, Jehosophat, and a clan of twelve other family members journeyed from New York to Illinois, settling west of Carrolton and awaiting the creation of a new county with newly surveyed land. Early in 1821 , the Illinois legislature created seven new counties, dividing Madison County in the process to create Greene County. Josophat Eldred and his sons William and Ward purchased Greene County land in January. Ward purchased five 80 acre (one eight section) tracts in Sections 17 , 20, and 21 of township 10. His family probably made their initial homestead in section 21. His second son, James John Eldred, was born in 1828.
When Ward Eldred purchased the Section 16 property from Hiram R Brown in April 1840, he paid $4000 for the 310 acres in Section 16 and 160 acres in Section 17, adding as it did to his extensive holdings in the area. The increased value of the land is probably due in part to the presence of a residential structure and possibly other support structures on the property. This coincides with archaeological evidence pointing to a structure on the site occupied during the 1830’s.
Ward Eldred’s first two wives had died before he purchased the section 16 property in 1840. He would marry twice more in the coming decade while raising cattle and growing crops on his lands. All four wives died in childbirth. The 1850 Census reveals Ward, at age 54, as the head of household, which also included his son James (21) along with four younger brothers and a seven year old sister, Evaline. The widower lost his own life in 1851 after contracting erysipelas (acute skin disease) while working cattle during a flood in the Illinois bottoms. After his father’s death, James John Eldred purchased his older brother Ward’s interest in the section 16 Property. James had married Emeline Smead, the sister of his fathers fouth wife, in February 1851, and the couple probably lived in the old Eldred Home. During 1851 the Eldred’s completed a new four story limestone barn west of the house.
Ward had had need of such a structure, and had been gathering stone, flooring, and shingles for the purpose. At the time of his death he had had 194 head of cattle, 70 cows, 58 calves, 30 horses, and five oxen and goats. He sold cheese to the major market in nearby St Louis and grew wheat and corn. James J. Eldred inherited the cheese making equipment and raised a variety of live stock and crops. The farm flourished and the Eldred’s had four children by 1860. In addition to the immediate family the Eldred’s also supported two domestics, and his 17 year old sister Evaline. Three farm laborers assisted the Eldred in growing crops, including wheat and corn. As the nation headed to civil war, Eldred’s personal prosperity had lead to plan and construct a new farm house. The JJ Eldred house completed in 1861 was probably the most elegant residential structure in the region and is an important surviving example of Greek Revival architecture transplanted to the Illinois bluff. Combining the stylistic values of neoclassicism with traditional local materials, Eldred created a county estate home that became a center piece of regional social life during the 1860’s and 1870’s
Marshall House
This large stone house, nestled close to the bluff, near the upper limits of the Lower Illinois valley. Its architchture and construction suggest the background of the English country side. With the loss of the road close to the bluff, the entrances of the house were reversed. The back, with the near by shed is used as the front entrance. The front, wiht its two entrances and evenly spaces windows, in now the back.
The Marshall family (given name unknowen) built the house, probably in the 1830’s when they come to Scott County, just above the Greene County Line. They come from England. According to a local historian in the 1970’s who had lived in the stone house for 40 years, as a hired man of a past owner, it is frequently visited by groups interestested in English architecture. He states that there is a similar house on north word in the valley near Bluffs.
Schild House
Frank Schild was born in Nicholasdorf, Austria, on the 13th os December 1835, his parents being Joseph and Mary Conote-Schild. Frank was reared in Austria and learned the trade of shoemaking, and after finishing his apprenticeship, began to travel though the country ending up in Hamburg with his brother and sister. From there they left for New York were they remained one week and moved on to Milwaukee for six months were he worked as a shoemaker.
Mr. Schild moves several more times; once to Michigan were he worked in a saw mill about a year; then to St. Lewis f or about a week; then to Greene County.
For his first five years in Greene County Frank worked for Hazard Clendenen and rented a home from him. At the end of that five years he purchased 80 acres of rough timbered land from Clendenen. He erected the stone farm house in 1871.
In March of 1860 he was married to Anna Lager a native of Germany having lost her previous husband some years earlier. They were the parent of two boys, Joseph and George, Anna had two children form her previous marrage Henery and Huston.
The house is nestled in a tiny valley behind heavy foliage, bairly visable from the road. The house was left to Joseph and Mary Goeddy-Schild after Franks death.
Young House
According to a direct descendant, Mrs. Bertha camerer Hodgerson, Brothers of one family married ssters of another in the late 1880’s. George Camerer married Elizabeth Young. Samuel Camerer Married Margaret Young.
The Young Sisters parents Philip and Mary Fields-Young lived in the house. Either Mr. Young or Mrs. Young’s parents had built the house.
It was to have been two story but the stone mason from England died before the home was finished resulting in a wooden second story. There was also a stone barn and bridge near the property at one time.
According to a local historian, Warren Howdeshell, the hollow was called Bridgewater Hollow for John and Frank Bridgewater who owned property north of the Young House. The settlement had a general store, post office, blacksmith shop, and a steam powered mill. Burrs of the old mill still remain in a pasture where it once stood.
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