"Woe to the English soldiery that little dread us near!
On them shall light at midnight a strange and sudden fear;
When waking to their tents on fire, they grasp their arms in vain,
And they who stand to face us are beat to earth again;
And they who fly in terror deem a mighty host behind,
And hear the tramp of thousands upon the hollow wind.
"Well knows the fair and friendly moon the band that Marion leads--
The glitter of their rifles, the scampering of their steeds.
‘Tis life to guide the fiery barb across the moonlit plain;
‘Tis life to feel the night wind that lifts his tossing mane.
A moment in the British camp — a moment, and away
Back to the pathless forest before the peep of day."
Who has not thrilled to these stirring lines of Bryant in his "Song of Marion's Men," carrying as they
do the very breath of the wild Carolina forests where Marion and his band had their rendezvous and from which they
struck such telling blows against the Royalists during the last two years of the Revolution.
Composed at first of but twelve men and boys, white and black, ragged and nondescript, variously and poorly armed,
the famous "ragged band" became a thunderbolt of war that struck without warning and with disastrous
consequences for the Tories — Tarleton with his merciless dragons, and Ferguson with his riflemen. Marion became
known as the "Swamp Fox," he and his band having their headquarters in almost inaccessible swamps, whence
they issued, sometimes by day, sometimes in the dead of night, striking at the British and laying the basis for
a thousand legendary tales. In their deep forest fastnesses they lived chiefly on baked potatoes served on pieces
of bark; "hunger," as Marion once observed to a British guest, "being the best sauce."
In a neglected corner of the old Milton (now French) cemetery, a short distance southwest of the village of Milton,
in a nameless and unmarked grave, lies the dust of one of those Revolutionary patriots, "few, but true and
tried" under a "leader frank and bold." This patriot dust is that of Zachariah (Boone) Allen, buried
there 111 years ago, in 1825, long before any cemetery was platted there. His grandson, Nathan Thornton, spoke
of him in 1906 as "one of Marion's men," and as having served through seven years of the War of Independence.
Francis Marion was a popular hero on the Pike county border. Books were few in the pioneer cabins, but usually,
among them, was a "Life of Marion." This popularity of the "Bayard of the South" is revealed
by old inventories of Pike county estates, recorded in the early probate records of the county. The "Life
of Marion" trailed only the Holy Bible in the rude libraries in the early Pike county cabins.
Daughters of the American Revolution gladly would mark the grave of the Revolutionary patriot, Boone Allen, if
they knew the exact spot of his burial. Beside him, in this early burial plot, was buried his wife, Dinah, a daughter
of the Boones; she, according to her grandson, having been buried therein in 1823. The only marker now visible
in the vicinity of their graves (April, 1936) is a half-recumbent two-foot slab that marks the grave of Louisiana
Garrison, first wife of Zachariah A. Garrison, a grandson of the Boones in the sixth generation in America. The
stone slab conveys the information that Louisiana Garrison died May 15, 1839, aged 21 years, 1 month and 10 days.
From other records it is known that this young wife of a grandson of the Boones was Louisiana Davis, a daughter
of Thomas Davis, who settled in what is now Montezuma township in 1826, the year in which the Garrisons came. She
married Zachariah A., a son of Elijah and Sally (Allen) Garrison, the latter a daughter of Dinah Boone, January
28, 1834, being, when married, 15 years of age. She left a daughter, Mary L., who settled in the far west and was
living "somewhere in Oregon" in 1880. Another daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Garrison, born January 13, 1837,
died September 13, 1851, at the age of 14 years and 8 months. This great granddaughter of Dinah Boone is buried
on "Boone Slope" in the northern extremity of Green Pond cemetery, at the edge of the wildwood, where,
beneath leaning, fallen and broken slabs, on most of which the inscriptions are still legible, sleeps a colony
of the Boone descendants.
The place pointed out by forebears to Nathan Thornton as that wherein his maternal grandparents were buried is
a short distance east of the Louisiana Garrison marker in the French cemetery, the precise spot of course being
unknown. More than a century of time has obliterated all evidences of human burial.
Zachariah Allen first appears in the official records of Pike county September 7, 1824, when he was named by the
county commissioners in a list of petit jurors to be summoned by Sheriff Leonard Ross for the ensuing October term
of court at Atlas. At the September 1825 term of the Pike County Commissioners' Court, Zachariah Allen and Jonathan
B. Allen were named as grand jurors for the ensuing circuit court term. At this term (October, 1825) Sheriff Ross
reported to the court that the summons for Zachariah Allen had not been served. It is probable that Zachariah Allen
was then dead or on his death bed. The statement of the grandson, Nathan Thornton, fixes Boone Allen's death in
the year 1825.
Jonathan B. Allen, also summoned for grand jury service in 1825, doubtless was Jonathan Boone Allen, believed to
have been the eldest son of Zachariah and Dinah (Boone) Allen and named for his grandfather, Jonathan Boone, brother
of Daniel. It is certain that Jonathan Boone Allen came in the same year (1822) in which the Zachariah Allens came;
he is believed by the Boone descendants in Pike, Scott and Calhoun counties to have been an elder brother of Lewis
Allen, a known son of the Boone Allens, who was at least for 22 years actively identified with the county's early
history.
A Jonathan B. Allen enlisted from Pike county in the Black Hawk war in 1832, believed to have been Jonathan Boone
Allen. Jonathan B. Allen was enrolled in Captain Benjamin Barney's company of the 3rd Regiment, commanded by Abram
B. Dewitt, of the Brigade of Mounted Volunteers commanded by Brigadier General Whiteside, in which company Lewis
Allen, known son of the Boone Allens, was second lieutenant. This company was mustered out of service at the mouth
of the Fox river, May 27, 1832. Nothing is known of Jonathan Allen following this "muster out" at the
close of the Black Hawk war.
Lewis Allen, believed to have been the second son and third child of the Boone Allens, and himself known as Boone
Allen in the early settlement, was born in Warren county, Kentucky, on the bank of the Green river, in 1794. He
was 28 when, with his wife Chloe, he made temporary settlement between the present villages of Detroit and Milton
in 1822 and erected the first log house in Detroit township on Section 31 in 1823. He had married in Kentucky.
His wife's family name is unknown. She may have been a Van Bibber, as a man named Peter Van Bibber, possibly her
father, appears to have lived with or near them sometime in Pike county and in some old records appears as surety
and as a partner in financing some real estate transactions of Lewis Allen and his wife. That the Boone and Van
Bibber families intermarried is well established, two sons of Daniel Boone, namely Jesse Bryan and Nathan, marrying
ladies of that name; Jesse Boone marrying Chloe Van Bibber, a daughter of James and Samoa Van Bibber, and Nathan
marrying Olive, a daughter of Peter Van Bibber. Aside from this duplication of names and the proximity of abode
and financial partnership as shown above, there is no evidence to lift the matter of relationship out of the realm
of plausible conjecture.
Lewis Allen was the first to bring the gospel into the Pike county wilds. Long before any other Christian minister
arrived, we find him holding gospel meetings in "God's first temples," the ancient groves of Detroit
and Montezuma. Five years before Peter Cartwright held his first camp meeting in Pike county (1827) we find this
son of Dinah Boone raising his voice in praise to the Almighty in the Blue river groves and in the log cabins of
the early settlers. He appears to have begun his ministry among the settlements immediately upon his arrival here
in 1822. This was three years before the next preacher (John Garrison), and four years before John Medford, the
first Methodist, Captain Ozias Hale, the missionary Baptist, and Elijah Garrison, great early minister of the Christian
church and son-in-law of the Boone Allens, arrived in the county.
Lewis Allen was a minister of the Baptist church and through him the Baptists may properly lay claim to being the
first to bring the Word into the Pike county wilderness. His preaching, as related by Rebecca Burlend, who heard
him preach on Big Blue in the 1830s, was of "the homeliest sort, but right from the heart, without any pretenses
to puzzle the unwary."
Another pioneer, speaking of these early preachers, said: "The ministers of the gospel of the Savior of the
world hunted us up and preached to what few there were; therefore, we did not degenerate and turn heathen, as any
community will where the sound of the gospel is not heard. I shall not give their names, though sacred in memory,
for they were not after the fleece, but after the flock, because they had but little to say about science and philosophy,
but spoke of purer things."
There appears to have been a strong religious emotion among these early Pike county Boones, even in those who professed
no religion nor espoused any church. Perhaps the religion of the Boones is best expressed by Daniel Boone himself,
in a letter to his sister-in-law, Sarah Boone, wife of his brother Samuel, written October 19, 1816, which reveals
not only the great pioneer's simple faith but also his lack of schoolroom polish and his tragic spelling. In this
letter he says:
"All the Relegan I have to love and fear God beleve in Jeses Christ Don all the good to my Nighbour and my
self that I Can and Do as little harm as I Can help and trust on God's marcy for the rest and I beleve God neve
made a man of my prisepel to be Lost." This revealing letter is quoted from "Biographical Sketch of Daniel
Boone, the Pioneer," by Jesse Proctor Crump, a grandson of Joseph Scholl, Jr., who was a grandson of Daniel
Boone, which sketch was contributed to Mrs. Hazel Atterbury Spraker's book, "The Boone Family," Mrs.
Spraker being also a Boone descendant.
Daniel Boone's spelling (or lack of it) is duplicated in old family Bibles and in letters written by Boone descendants
in this region. On the family record pages of an ancient and dilapidated Bible in possession of a Boone descendant
in Scott county, occur these quaint examples of Boone expression: "Sary An Francis was borned desembir 20
in 1780 and eas ded in Febery 18 in 1826." Again: "Caroline Alen was ded in Febery of 13 in 1826."
Then there is the scribbled record of when "Martin broak his koler boan." In old records on file in the
courthouse at Pittsfield is a Boone letter authorizing the issuance of a marriage license to Zachariah A. Garrison
and Louisiana Davis in 1834, directed to William Ross, clerk of the commissioners' court, which reads as follows:
"Pleas sir to make a mariage lissens so zak garrison Can make mariage with Suzany davis and (probably intended
for ‘oblige' but undecipherable). Sally garrison," Zack Garrison was then 18 years of age. Simple records
these, and typical of a great wilderness family.
Lewis Allen, grandson of the Boones and known in the early community as Boone Allen, was the "marrying parson"
of the 1830s, as revealed by old records in the office of County Clerk O. D. Gicker. Boone Allen's first recorded
wedding in this county is that of Joseph Gale to Elizabeth Garrison, July 21, 1831, the bride being Boone Allen's
niece and a great granddaughter of the Jonathan Boones. His second recorded wedding is that of Terril P. Sitton
to Ann Cooper, January 21, 1832, wherein Lewis Allen first records himself as a "Minister of the Baptist Church."
On January 28, 1834, Lewis Allen officiated in the wedding of Zachariah Garrison to Miss Louisiana Davis, the groom
being a son of Lewis Allen's sister, Sarah (Sally) Allen Garrison, wife of Elijah Garrison (a pioneer Christian
preacher of 1826), she being a granddaughter of Jonathan Boone and a great granddaughter of Squire and Sarah (Morgan)
Boone, the parents of Daniel.
Lewis Allen's last recorded wedding is that of Joshua M. Cooper to Elizabeth Ann Ingram, October 12, 1837. He last
appears in the official records of Pike county in a land conveyance wherein he and his wife Chloe deeded 40 acres
(the NE of the SW of Section 4, Montezuma township) to Thomas M. Johnson, January 24, 1844.
Boone Allen officiated at the wedding of John P. (Peter) Clemmons and Jane Hayden, May 14, 1836, one hundred years
ago now. The early Boone and early Clemmons or Clemens families (both spellings appear in the early records) seem
from those records to have been intimately associated. The Clemmons or Clemens family was related to the family
of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain); Dr. Frank Hall of Hannibal, a descendant of the Clemmons family, relating
that his grandmother, Angelina Clemmons Hall, wife of Thomas Linster Hall, early settlers in what is now Detroit
township, was a cousin of John Clemens, the father of Mark Twain. Mark Twain, in his boyhood days in Hannibal,
several times visited his relatives in this county.
Willis M. (Boone) Peebles of Pittsfield derived his generally accepted name of "Boone" from Pike county's
first preacher, Lewis (Boone) Allen of the early days. Lewis Allen a century ago owned the old Pebbles homestead
south of Detroit and north and west of Blue River cemetery (W ½ of the SW of Section 19, Detroit township).
This tract was acquired by Lewis Allen and his wife, May 23, 1833, from James Mason, to whom it was patented by
the United States. On May 24, 1836 Lewis Allen deeded it to Willis Pebbles, grandfather of Willis M. Peebles. Willis
Peebles so admired Lewis (Boone) Allen that he named his son, Allen Carlyle Peebles (father of Willis M.) After
this early Boone. From this circumstance the nickname of Boone, applied to the father, has passed on down to the
son, and has been so commonly accepted that few know Willis Peebles by any other name than "Boone."
The first Boone wedding in Pike county was that of Polly (Boone) Allen to Larkin Thornton, February 22, 1830. The
license was issued at Atlas, January 18, 1830, by William Ross, then clerk of the county commissioners' court.
The wedding was celebrated in the log home of the Lewis (Boone) Allens on the Milton road. Josiah Sims, an elder
of the Christian church, officiated.
Polly Allen was the youngest daughter of Zachariah and Dinah (Boone) Allen. She was born on the banks of Green,
near the junction with the Barren, in Warren county, Kentucky, in 1805. She later lived with her parents for a
time on the banks of the Wabash, on the Illinois side, and in 1822, at the age of 17, came on horseback with her
parents and two brothers, Jonathan and Lewis, to Pike county, Illinois.
The Thorntons and Allens had been neighbors in Kentucky. Larkin and Polly had known each other on the Green river.
The Allens had moved from Boone county on the Ohio to Warren county on the Green, prior to 1794, Lewis Allen having
been born in Warren county in that year. The Thorntons, Aaron and Sarah (Evans) Thornton (parents of Larkin), settled
as near neighbors of the Boone Allens in Warren county, Kentucky, about 1800. When the Allens came to Pike county,
Illinois, the Thorntons followed, becoming pioneer settlers in the Detroit and Milton neighborhood.
The Thorntons, like the Boones and Allens, were adventurous pioneers. John Thornton and his wife, the paternal
grandparents of Larkin, became pioneers in Texas, removing from North Carolina and Virginia to the Lone Star state,
where they lived under the rule of Governor Sam Houston when Texas was a separate republic under its own flag.
Larkin Thornton and his bride, following their marriage in 1830, established a log home of their own in the Boone
Settlement near Milton. Old settlers around Milton remember them in their log house, which stood some distance
west of the present Arthur Sneeden residence. Mr. Sneeden's residence stands on the east end of the old Larkin
Thornton 50-acre tract.
Frank Lindsey of Milton recalls Larkin and Polly in their rude log house that had not a window in it. There was
a slab door in the south and another in the north. Even in winter, light, if any was had, was admitted by having
a door ajar. One end of the rude cabin was occupied by a fireplace, before which Aunt Polly sat and smoked her
pipe, contented with her lot. No word of complaint, it is said, ever fell from Aunt Polly's lops. She was wilderness
bred, inured to every hardship and peril of the border. Amid surroundings of the rudest character, she was contented,
not realizing she was having a hard time. "Yes, I remember Aunt Polly well," says Frank Lindsey; "she
was a Boone."
