John G. Parr. Caleb and Elizabeth Horn first operated this one, and it was known as Roxan. Horn was related to the Mayne family. He finally purchased the 120 acre farm, the post office being on the north half of the southwest quarter of Section nineteen, on June 19, 1851.
Apparently he had operated it for some years as the tenant of Grant and Montgomery. Horn later rented the farm to Thomas and Elizabeth Campbell, who took over Roxan as the Campbell post office, and Horn moved into Kappa when the railroad came, in some position with an early agricultural organization. The Campbells13 were also related to the Maynes, and finally purchased the farm from the Horns. Thomas Campbell used to tell the older Maynes how the mail often came over the trail by pony express riders, and how upon occasion in midwinter they cut ice from the saddlebags before the courier could dismount for care and food.
The section line roadways, now well improved, were only a supposition for some years after the surveys were first made, and our early settlers continued to use these old trails as short cuts. Early settler George Andrews came with his parents to Illinois Central land near Tonica in 1855, and a few years later they moved northeast of El Paso on the prairie. He related to the writer:
I often rode with my father to Streator for coal and supplies. It was a long, hard two day trip, so we shortened it all we could by driving across country. At first I can remember only one cabin between ours and Streator. Where the trail was not marked, we followed the stars at night and landmarks such as the little groves on the creeks by day. Later, farmers began plowing their fields so we couldn't drive overland any more, but by then we could buy coal and other needed items at the new railroad towns.
Wheat was often hauled from the El Paso area to Peoria by wagon, sometimes to Chicago. Lumber and food supplies were the usual return loads. Large cattlemen like the Funk14 families of McLean County would organize cattle and hog drives for themselves and neighbors. By closely following the route of today's busy highway 66, they made the trip to the Chicago slaughter houses in twelve to fifteen days.
The prairie fire was a great hazard until the Civil War days. So tall it would almost hide a horseman, this native grass was annually burned by the Indians so the wild game would return in the spring to feed on the tender young shoots that followed. Pioneers continued this practice to make plowing easier. Often these fires got out of hand in a fresh wind, and horses sometimes had to be stampeded to get away from a threatened area. Cabins on the prairie or in the woods always had a clearing, or plowed strip around them for protection. One eastern newsman riding southward from La Salle over the new Illinois Central in 1853 to the first of the Illinois State fairs wrote that "it is beautiful country, and at night many prairie fires are seen."
Wild life has felt the change of the balance of nature that the white man brought. The bison, elk, black bears, wolves and catamount that Pere Marquette saw have gone, but the beavers and deer will make a
Page 9