A Deserted Village, Clarksville, Illinois
(April 2004)
The following piece is copied from Ancestors Yours and Mine
Volume 1, Number 2 February, 1975
The only town in Money Creek Township is Clarksville. The traditions of this "once lively town" were chronicled in the Bloomington PANTAGRAPH and reprinted in the LEXINGTON UNIT, 26 May 1899.
One of the oldest residents of McLean County, in conversation with a Pantagrapher, recently related the following graphic and interesting bit of local history:
The town of Clarksville was laid out on the fifteenth day of July 1836, by Joseph and Marston Clark Bartholomew, and the plat recorded in Book 1 of the records of McLean County. This town was located three miles west of where the town of Lexington now stands, on the old Peoria road running from East to West to Peoria. It never grew to any immense proportions, but in the late 30’s and 40’s, probably between 1836 and 1840, was a town consisting of several houses, a store and a saloon or two, a hotel and the meeting house. For pure wickedness in the early settlement of the town it was claimed by people who lived there and near there that it never had an equal, at least in this country.
It was infested with gamblers and horse racers. It was here that the Freelands owned the raced old "Clear the Kitchen", supposed to be the fastest quarter nag that ever was in this county. Several inhabitants of the town who were believed to be lawbreakers and wicked men made it dangerous for churchmen either to go to church or to have it known in the town that they were members of the church. This thing was allowed to go on until in the judgement of the good people in the vicinity, forbearance had ceased to be a virtue.
There upon a prayer meeting was called for the express purpose, as the story goes, of praying for the death of the ring-leader. On consideration it was concluded that prayer for the death of one of the ring-leaders was all that could be effective on any one night. On this night, as the story goes, they prayed for the death of one Johnson Sowards, intending later on to select perhaps one of the Freeland boys, or some one of the ring-leaders of the town, and pray for their deaths. During the prayer meeting a prayer by some one of the brethren asked that a child might be born and brought up and stop the wicked in the manner after Sampson of ancient times. On the next day Sowards was taken sick, and sick unto death for two or three months. Threats of further prayer meetings followed and threats of riots if further prayer meetings were attempted for this purpose. The leaders of the town selected certain members of the church as victims in case of the death of Sowards. During these controversies a child was born now known as Joseph Bradley, who is a respected citizen and farmer in Livingston county and resides near Cornell. He is the only man now living who was born inside this town during the gays of its early history and commotion.
Sowards finally got well, but the news became largely circulated that while the church people would hold no further open prayer, which it was believed would be as effectual, if not more so, than the prayer originally contemplated. In fear of the result of the secret and silent prayer, and the fact that the child Bradley had been born, and the fact that the prayer meeting for the death of Sowards was almost effectual, the supposed outlaws, left the town and the county.
The result of all was that the town went down. All the houses in the town were removed out on the prairie except the old meeting house and the hotel. The hotel was used for some years as a hotel, dwelling house, and a cabinet shop, and occupied by a man by the name of Ails, who is long since dead. Later on, the old hotel was removed to the prairie by Daniel Chance, placed on his farm and used by him as a family residence.
This was perhaps as late as 1845. The old church, remarkable in its history, stood there for many years. I do not know whether it now remains in the town or not, and for thirty years the town was a desolate waste save an occasional Sunday when the people would gather for religious services at the old meeting house.
The ground upon which the town was situated consisted of twenty acres, or about that, and around that town the community is settled up with as good people as there are in the county of McLean or elsewhere. There is, a little east of the old town, a lovely church, and a little to the northwest of the old town a fine schoolhouse, and the country around is made to bud and blossom as the rose. Little do many of the people who live in the neighborhood surrounding this land fully appreciate or know of the fact of the wonderful history of the town.
This town is gone, but its history remains, although unwritten, and has been kept alive by tradition. Without regard to the question whether these wonderful stories are true or not, the tradition ought to be recorded, and the possibilities are that the traditions are substantially correct. Descendant of several of the people who were engaged, as they supposed wisely, though it may have been otherwise, are dead, but many of their descendants live in that neighborhood and surrounding county.
It is true that these church people were zealous and perhaps acted unwisely, yet the fear of the force and effect of prayer, silent and secret or otherwise, and the fear of the on-coming man, the child Bradley, led the alleged violators of law and good order to believe that a climate for distance beyond the reach of prayer, and beyond the reach of the child Bradley, would be more conducive to their lives and their happiness.
"The Pantagraph."
(Ed.: The Bradley child mentioned in the above article was Joseph Milton Bradley, born September 28, 1840 in Clarksville, to James and Nancy (Bartholomew) Bradley. His maternal grandparents were General Joseph and Elizabeth (McNaught) Bartholomew; his paternal grandparents, Isaac Ardis and Eleanor (Scott) Bradley. Joseph Bradley married Florence Patterson, on February 28, 1878 in Cornell, Illinois. They had five known children. Mr. Bradley died 31 August 1929 in Cornell. The above research by Mrs. Verda Gerwick.)