Hainesville History: Elijah, Abraham, Plank Road and the Lost Cemetery

From the Hainesville Village Site.

In 1847, through special efforts by Elijah M. Haines,  a charter was granted to the town of Hainesville.  In 1902 an election was held and Hainesville was changed from a town to a village.  Elijah Haines made the first plat map of Lake County while working as a school master in the first county school at Little Fort, now Waukegan.

Hainesville's first school house was a wooden cabin built in 1846, in which church services were also held.  Hainesville also once had a post office and train station.

In 1847, Elijah Haines met Abraham Lincoln at a convention in Chicago.  In 1848, Hainesville became a toll road stop on the predecessor of  Belvidere Road (Route 120) between Waukegan and Belvidere, Illinois.  It was later called Old Plank Road.

Hainesville once had a small private cemetery on the south side of Cranberry Lake.  There have been many attempts to locate it, but all have been unsuccessful.  Village founder Elijah Haines is buried there.

--Old Secesh

Met My Good Buddy Bob at the Hainesville Civil War Re-enactment: His Ed Bearss Story

Since the event advertised Elijah Haines, founder of Hainesville as being there, I figured that my good buddy and long time teacher friend, Bob, was there portraying him.  He was.

Sadly, almost the only time I get to see Bob these days is at this event.  We taught together at Magee Middle School in Round Lake, Illinois, for  31 years.  I usually taught 7th grade social studies and he 8th grade social studies.  He just turned 75 and has been retired 15 years.   Much of his time now is spent in theater.  Until this year he was the king at the famous Renaissance Faire on the Illinois/Wisconsin border.

He still belongs to The Civil War Round Table as the Chicago Civil War Round Table calls itself, but rarely attends meetings any more because they are at O'Hare and you have to drive your car.  He used to take the train downtown to Chicago before they moved meetings to O'Hare.

I told him about the McHenry County Civil War Round Table which I belong to and he says he might just get out to a meeting.

However, he has gone a lot of the Chicago Round table's Battlefield Tours and quite often Ed Bearss has been tour director.  A favorite story of Bob's is one time they were at a battlefield and it started raining and continued to get harder until everyone had retreated to cover, but there stood Ed out talking and pointing and gesturing with his arms, completely oblivious that he was the only one out there.

However, he soon had a new audience.  There was a cow pasture there and pretty soon, the cows all had meandered over to the fence and paying rapt attention to Ed.

Good Story.  --Old Secesh

Calvin Crane, Last Living Confederate Real Son, Dies-- Part 4

Mr. Crane is survived by two daughters and a host of grand children, great grand children and a great-great grandson and another on the way.

The Crane family declined to be interviewed for this article.  However, in 2013, Crane's daughter Cynthia Crane  Jones, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that she has had difficulties convincing others of her Civil War connections.

"I know when I was in like third or fourth grade and we'd start studying the Civil War, I'd say, 'My grandfather was in the Civil War!' " she told the newspaper.  Her classmates and teachers would try to correct her by saying, " 'No, no, that was your great-grandfather.'  And I'd say, 'No, it was my grandfather.'  Mom even had to go to school one time and tell them that it was my grandfather."

--Old Secesh

There Is Still a Brickville Road in Sycamore, Illinois

I looked it up and found that there was still a Brickville Road in Sycamore.  From DeKalb, you take Illinois Highway 23 north to Peace Road in Sycamore, turn left and then take that a ways north until you get to Brickville Road which goes in both directions.

You turn left again and go several miles and you will get to North Grove School, a one-room schoolhouse, where many, if not all of the Beard children attended school.  It still stands and is a museum.

Once a year in June, they have an open house.

--Old Secesh

Fletcher Pratt's "Civil War in Pictures"

Since I have been writing about the artists would brought the Civil War to the people via their illustrations, I decided to go dig out my old copy of this book, over which I spent so much time back when I was a youngster.

It is old, much smaller than I remembered and a bit dog-eared. My mother had used it in her classroom library when she taught. I see my very childish scrawl on the inside cover showing my address at the time as being at 129 North Library Street, Grenvile (well, actually Greenville as in North Carolina). That would have put me in 4th or 5th grade at that time.

My mother had also written our address through junior high, high school and even first year at college. That would be 1102 E. Anderson, Palatine, Illinois.

There are three pieces of tape holding the front and back covers together.

My copy, which I think cost me a small fortune of $5 and bought at a small mom and pop book store in Greenville (maybe) was printed by Garden City Books, Garden City, New York.

Copyright is 1955 by Fletcher Pratt, who also wrote a favorite paperback book of mine about the Civil War. I think it was called "A Short History of the Civil War."

The Garden City Books Edition was printed in 1957.

As I said a few days ago, this book was essentially a compilation of illustrations from Harper's Weekly and Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly Newspaper.

Hello, Old Friend. --Old Secesh

Heritage Attacks: A School and Robert E. Lee

DECEMBER 17, 2013: 12 NEWS "FLORIDA SCHOOL WILL DROP CONFEDERATE NATHAN B. FORREST'S NAME"

Nathan B. Forrest High School was named 54 years ago in Duvall County (Jacksonville). Monday, the school board voted 7-0 to change it. It opened in 1959 in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision requiring racially integrated schools. I usually do not like to see historical names changed, but in this case, since the majority of the students served at the school are black, I can go along with the decision. Now, if the majority had been white, that would have been a different story.

DECEMBER 18, 2013, FOX NEWS "U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE CONSIDERS REMOVING PRINTS DEPICTING ROBERT E. LEE, CONFEDERATE GENERALS."

One official at the college questioned why the paintings were there during an inventory of the Carlisle, Pennsylvania, school's paintings. The school opened in 1901 to provide study concerning the lessons of war and graduates more than 300 officers, foreign students and civilians a year. Regardless of where he received his greatest fame, Robert E. Lee's service in the U.S. Army before the war and his tactics and leadership have to be considered among the greatest in American history.

--Old Secesh

Fayetteville (NC) Female High School

From July 2013 to April 2014, I was unable to use paragraphs in any of my blogs.  Here in 2018, I am going back through them and inserting paragraphs.  This is how the non-paragraph entries looked.

From the July 29, 2012 Fayetteville (NC) Observer "Civil War 150th Anniversary--July 1862 developments." . The paper goes back to its editions printed back then for these stories. //// From the July 14, 1862 newspaper. "The all-absorbing war has not extinguished the interest of out citizens in this favorite institution (the Fayetteville Female High School).  ////  Its 7th Annual Commencement gave occasion last week, with diplomas conferred upon the following young ladies, members of the Senior Class of 1862: Irene McNeill, C. Myrover, Joanna McRae, Hattie Starr, Atilia Whitted, Olivia Stedman, E. Rose, E. Tillinghast, Joanna Watts, Alice Cook, Fannie Hinsdale and Hattie Kershaw." //// You have to wonder how the war impacted these young ladies. How many boyfriends were away in the service? --Old Secesh

North Carolina's New Tool for Teaching the Civil War

From the Nov. 28th Goldsboro (NC) News-Argus.

State students will have a new way to link classroom lessons about the war to actual sites in the state.

The Division of State Historic Sites has launched The North Carolina Civil War Experience to that effect.

A website for teachers offers activities and lesson plans (hopefully with those worrisome state goals included) to twelve state sites like Bentonville Battlefield (about fifteen miles from where I sit) and my favorite, Fort Fisher. I'm sure Bennett House is also on the list.

It is designed for eighth graders, but the materials can be adapted for high school.

Too Bad I Don't Teach Anymore. Not Really. --Old B-Runner