My Genealogy Hound

HUNNICUTT, ROWELL, farmer and stock raiser, Sec. 16, P.O. White Hall. Few in western life have endured more of its trials and its hardships, than the whole-souled gentleman whose name heads this sketch. Rowell Hunnicutt is a native of South Carolina, where he was born on the fifteenth of June, 1807. Of the parents we have only space to say, that his father, Hartwell T. Hunnicutt, was born in South Carolina in 1781, and a millwright by occupation, and he married in South Carolina Miss Margaret Cunningham, who bore him fifteen children, fourteen of whom grew to mature years. He left the South for the far west Dec. 25, 1816, and after a most harassing journey overland in a covered wagon, he first landed at the mouth of Wood River, a short distance below the city of Alton, in Madison County. He remained here some four years, when he set out for Greene County, where he settled on the first of May, 1820, in what is familiarly known as the Bluff Region, where he remained until his removal to township 11, range 13, where he became a school teacher, the first who taught in this part of the county. He was a self-made man, and displayed considerable ability for the period of time in which he lived. He died in 1832, after a long life of usefulness and honor, and his ashes repose within the borders of Greene County. Mrs. H. survived her husband some eight years, and was laid to rest in the Hunnicutt cemetery. Rowell, passing his boyhood in Greene County, grew to a vigorous manhood among the pioneers of the west, and there learned that sturdy spirit of self-reliance that led to successful results in subsequent years. He acquired a good common school education solely by individual efforts, and became familiar with mathematics by means of problems worked in the ashes in a broad open fireplace, under the instruction of William Craten, In 1826 Mr. H. made his way to Galena, where he went for the purpose of seeking employment in the lead mines. The season had been unusually wet, and accordingly he voyaged down the Mississippi on a flatboat to New Orleans, where he became employed on the wharf, where vessels were moored and where freight was unloaded at all hours of the day and night. From the Crescent City he took passage on the steamer Liberator for St. Louis, the scene of many a stirring event in early western days, and where our subject for a period of three years had officiated as the commander of a small keel boat, which he would load with honey, beeswax, deer hides and furs, such as coonskins, mink and otter, and from the mouth of Apple Creek, where the town of Newport now stands, he would ply the little craft to St. Louis, where he would lay in a supply of dry goods, groceries and whisky, the latter a highly prized article, for the return voyage. From St. Louis he returned to Greene County, where he married on the 14th of February, 1827, Miss Mary Pruitt, a daughter of James Pruitt, who settled in Greene County in 1820. After his marriage he built a common round log cabin and followed farming to a limited extent. When the Blackhawk war broke out he volunteered as a soldier, under the command of Captain Fay, and witnessed the skirmish at the mouth of Bad Ax Creek, and was also an eye-witness of the peace treaty subsequently made at Rock Island. When the Indian troubles no longer agitated the Northwest he returned to his home, and there followed farming until 1834, when he moved north. He settled at Peru, where he purchased property at the land sale, and built the first house in the village for L. D. Brewster, and while residing here he had the pleasure of seeing the Hall girls, who, captured by the Indians in 1832, had but a short time previous to Mr. H.’s arrival been released from captivity. This event occasioned considerable excitement at the time, and we find frequent mention made of this incident in early histories of Illinois and the Northwest. In 1836 he returned to Greene County, where he resided until 1856, when he moved to Calhoun County, where he established a ferry and a commission business, and also transacted a remunerative business in the shipment of wood to St. Louis. After a successful business extending over ten years, he became a forwarding and commission merchant at the town of Newport. During the Spring of 1860 he plunged still farther westward, and eventually landed in Nevada, where he established a quartz mill in connection with Lewis W. Sink and a party by the name of Lorelen, given name unknown. In what is now Nevada City our subject built the first cabin. While the new firm were transacting a most successful business, with twelve stamps in running operation, the war broke out, and with its attendant consequences shattered the hopes of its enterprising projectors. Mr. Hunnicutt once again turned his face toward his old home in Greene County, where he now resides in comfortable circumstances, on a farm of eighty acres, after a life fraught with interest and very unusual activity. Mrs. Hunnicutt died on the first of April, 1877, and was laid at rest within a short distance of the home that knew her presence for so many years. There were born of this marriage ten children, nine of whom are living: Jane, who married Geo. Hostelton; Hartwell S., who married Sarah Butler, and on her decease was married to Elizabeth Purnell; Catherine, who married James Cade; Julia Ann, who married Shannon E. Collins; Diana, who married Joshua T. Crow; George, who married Miss Emma Young, and Laura, who married Abraham Young. In the above sketch of Rowell Hunnicutt, we have mentioned his trip to Galena in search of employment, and it will be well to mention in this connection, that the date given, 1826, offered no railroad facilities, and accordingly Mr. Hunnicutt, starting from the mouth of Apple Creek, where the village of Newport now stands, in company, with Davis Carter, William Beman, John Beman, Jonathan Hill and John Daniel, voyaged down the Illinois to its mouth on the Mississippi, when the little party of explorers paddled up the Father of Waters to what is now Quincy, by canoe. Here they remained for a short time, and camped out on the site of what is now the city of Quincy, then not platted as a town, and even unknown as a village, for it contained but one log cabin partially built. Resuming their voyage, at the end of thirty-four days from their original starting point, this band of enterprising pioneers landed in Galena, a small hamlet containing one grocery store, one double log cabin used as a tavern, and a blacksmith’s shop.