Published in the Sangamo Journal, Springfield, Illinois on Tuesday, December 2, 1851
A San Francisco paper says that an immigrant, just arrived across the plains, gives the following description of a memorable journey of which many thousands of animals and so many persons of last years emigration perished.
“If there is a section of country in Gods wide extended creation that can surpass that large scope of country lying between Salt Lake Valley, and Carson’s River, for sterility of soil, scarcity of timber, and everything that has a tendency to cheer up the spirits of the warried traveler, I’m sure I don t want to see it. From the sink of Humboldt river across the desert to Carson’s River, my heart sickened at seeing the great destruction of property, viz: wagons, carriages and buggies, dead horses, mules and cattle, whose carcasses lie thick all over the ground, in a state of preservation, the skins and a good deal of the flesh being dried to the bones, the water marshes and air being impregnated with alkali, that has a tendency to keep off the devouring insects and birds of prey. But the worst had not been told. To see every two or three hundred yards a father, mother, brother or sister has been buried but the corpse is disinterred by the prowling wolf or savage Indian-the bones to bleach on the great American desert. Although I am a hardened sinner, I could not refrain from shedding tears, and feeling myself more submissive to that mighty and powerful God, who rules the universe.”
Published in the Sangamo Journal, Springfield, Illinois on Friday, November 4, 1853
Another R. R. Accident,- The accommodation train for Alton on Tuesday night, ran upon a cow lying on the track, a few miles north of Collinsville. The locomotive and tender were thrown aside and several freight cars came smashing after. The passenger car remained upon the track. The fireman was instantly killed and the wood-passer was not expected to live. the engineer, Geo. Senior, had his left leg broken in two places. The names of the wood-passer and fireman had not been learned. We learn that applications to the Company for these posts of danger are very numerous, and that inexperienced men ready to blunder on to destruction for almost any compensation. but under the most skillful management, accidents, such as noted above, will be of frequent occurrence so long as open lodgings are offered to all manner of four-footed travers.
It might be well if fences can’t be afforded along the line of roads, to fence out a few small patches for graveyards.
Published in the Sangamo Journal, Springfield, Illinois on Monday, July 21, 1851
A Fatherly Turkey.- The Providence Post tells the following story.
There is on the farm of Mr. Paris Mathewson, in Johnston, a male Turkey, who has the present season, set upon 21 eggs, and hatched 18 of them-having driven his better half from the nest, and taken it upon himself all the female care of domestic life, and spurned all interference from the gentler sex. This isn’t all. When his Turkeyship got his own brood out of the shell; he found that some of the women folks in the flock, had also been at work, and that there were in all sixty-seven young Turkeys to be taken care of. All these he has taken care of, and, is now a sort of lord mayor of the whole tribe, and knocks down all interfering ladies that come into his presence. he is a queer fellow; and a good one into the bargain.
Published in the Sangamo Journal, Springfield, Illinois on Monday, July 21, 1851
The Indians who didn’t amuse our people with a Buffalo Hunt, projected a real one at Lexington, Kentucky, on the 7th inst. It turned out to be a failure. The Buffalo refused to fight and the mob, who were disappointed, made a fuss generally, on the failure of their sport, and killed the Buffalo, as the best way to obtain satisfaction.
Published in the Sangamo Journal, Springfield, Illinois on Tuesday, July 22, 1851
Frogs in Egypt. Mrs. Loudon, in her “Entertaining Naturalist,” a book for children and young persons, says, “Frogs are generated in such numbers in Egypt, in the fields and meadows, that did not the storks devour them, they would overrun everything.” Are these frogs the progeny of those which Moses caused to annoy pharaoh and plague the Egyptians? or were they so infested with them before the time of Moses.
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Published in the Lake County Independent, Libertyville, Illinois on Friday, February 8, 1901
Finds Clock Works in Cow.—
B. Frank King, while butchering a cow at Sutton, Mass., found, on opening the animal’s stomach, that it contained all the running gear of an ordinary sized mantel clock, two stones, each the size of a hen’s egg, and a number of pieces of glass. The cow was apparently healthy.
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Published in the Waukegan Daily Sun, Waukegan, Illinois on Monday, July 15, 1912
Ring Around Rats Neck.—Bloomington, Illinois., July 15, 1912.Waukegan Daily Sun Wallace Fauber, a farmer of Woodford county, was pitching hay when a rat ran out of the stack. The animal was transfixed with the tines of the fork and killed. Fauber noted a peculiar shape to the head of the animal. Inspection revealed a ring around the neck and when when it was removed the inscription, F. S. to M. S., Sept. 26, 1896,” was plainly visible.
It was supposed the former tenant of the farm, Mrs. Frank Swaider, lost the ring. The rat probably inserted its head through the ring and was unable to remove it. An effort is being made to fine Mrs. Swaider.
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Published in the Waukegan Daily Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Monday, October 18, 1897
Vermont Not Ahead Yet.—This pig story from Vermont is behind the times as given by W. H. Dow. James Low comes to the front and says, “there is nothing new under the sun.” In the summer of 1845 he moved from Kenosha, Wisconsin to Millburn, Illinois. Among his effects was a young pig. About June 1, it was missing, but later was found by Richard Shatswell, Justice Shatswell’s father. Mr. Shatswell said he found the pig subsisting from a cow. James Low led the pig home after proving property, and says Richard Shatswell would vouch for the truthfulness of the statement were he alive. The pig followed Mr. Low like a dog over the country, as he drove his ox team, for some time afterward.
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Published in the Waukegan Daily Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Tuesday, June 22, 1897
Horses Burned At Winona—–Lacon, Illinois., Oct. 5, At two o’clock in the morning Burgess Brothers’ barn at Winona was burned. Thirty valuable horses, which had just been shipped in from the state fair at Springfield, were roasted alive. Many of them wore the first and second premium colors awarded there. The loss is $50,000; insurance on the barn alone. The fire is supposed to have been started by tramps in the hayloft.
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Published in the Lake County Independent, Libertyville, Illinois on Friday, January 22, 1904
Won a Grasshopper Race. Mackay was an early riser, a hard worker, and, exceedingly hospitable. He could seldom be induced to play cards for money and then for only nominal stakes. The only game that seemed to attract him was the “grasshopper races.” Boys caught grasshoppers and sold them to the players at 25 and 50 cents each. Each player paid a fixed stake, ranging from $1 to $20, into a pool, and the man whose hopper made the longest jump captured the pool. On the day before Christmas it was agreed to celebrate that holiday with a pool, the stakes in which were to be $100 for each player.
The terms were “Play or pay” and at the instance of a German professor who was a superintendent of a leading mine each man was allowed to use any means that he might devise to stimulate his grasshopper. The professor was so full of his scheme to scientifically capture the $1,000 pool-for there were ten entries-that he communicated it to a young manager who was not a grasshopper plunger. The professor had experimented and ascertained that a grasshopper that was touched with a feather dipped in a weak solution of aqua ammonia would jump for his life. The young man also experimented and as a result he filled a bottle of the same size and appearance with cyanide of potassium and managed to substitute it for the other in the professor’s laboratory. The next day, when the professor, after much boasting about his scientific attainments, dipped a feather in the substituted bottle and touched his insect with it, the grasshopper rolled over as dead as a mackerel, amid the roars of the crowd. Mackay,s hopper won the big pool, and two widows, whose husbands had been killed in the Yellow Jacket mine, received a gift of $500 each from an unknown source-San Francisco California.