The life of Jesse W. Fell

Front matter

IN THE

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Vol. V June, 1916 No. 2

Foreword

There are few men in any generation who see their lives in relation to the accomplishment of that generation. Few realize, altho all profess to believe, that appraisal of worth must be according to the proportion of a man's part in the advance of his day ; and that all honors and distinctions fall away from men when they stand before the bar of years, to be judged in the stark light of truth as to character and service. All men acknowledge this true, but the men are rare indeed who apply it to their own lives, and make it the basis of their individual schedule of values. Many men assert the immortality of the soul, but few can conceive themselves in any scheme of time which transcends the limits of their own lives; or content themselves to labor without reward, because they believe that in the fulness of time all souls must find full compensation.

In writing the story of a man whose part in the life of his generation might in itself bring him some meed of remembrance, I am nevertheless most anxious that his rare quality of indifference to such rewards as men might give, of steadfastness to ideals not generally held in his day, of faith in ultimate things, should stand out as the true reason for his being brought as fully as possible before men. Here was one who steadily ignored or refused honor and fame, who despised no quiet and unrecognized labor, who was not turned aside from his steady aim by the pressure of circumstance ; in short, whose belief in the future was interpreted in all the doings of his busy life. This is the sufficient reason for writing a life of Jesse W. Fell.

Frances M. Morehouse.

Table Of Contents

Chapter page

II. Business Ventures and Home Life, 1834-1856 22-35

III. The Journalist, 1836-1858 36-38

Chapter I

The Fell farm in New Garden Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, lay mainly upon a high ridge, which was known by the Indian name of Toughkenamon, or Fire Brand Hill. It is a region rich in historical associations, not far from Brandywine battlefield. The house was built of stone, and in later years was remodeled into a handsome country residence. Here Jesse W. Fell was born, November 10, 1808. His parents were Friends, of ancient and honorable English lineage, but of limited means and simple tastes. His father was a hatter, his mother a preacher of the Hicksites. Because he had much skill in song, his father, when he later united with the Methodists, became a choir leader; and he sometimes turned his resonant speaking voice to account in crying sales. There was a large family ; Jesse, named for his father, was the third child.

When he was eight years old, the family moved to another town in New Britain Township, and subsequently to Downington. In the country Jesse attended, with his brothers and sisters, the neighborhood subscription schools maintained among the Friends of Pennsylvania ; for there were then no public schools in the state. These schools, within the limited scope of their courses of study, were usually good, and the Fell children received a solid foundation in the elementary subjects. The elder brothers were apprenticed, upon reaching the proper age, to a blacksmith and a wheelwright respectively. As Jesse was not a robust lad, the parents and other relatives thought it best to apprentice him to a tailor, and cast about for a skilful master who might teach him this trade. But the boy himself objected so strenuously that the plan was abandoned. He "would learn a better business, ' ' he declared ; and his parents, not wishing to coerce him, waited for some definite talent or liking to appear, which might guide their son in deciding upon his vocation. As yet the boy had no plan, save that of becoming wiser than he was. He wanted to go to some school that would teach him more than the country subscription schools offered.

Joshua Hoopes conducted a boarding school for boys in Downington at the time, which was the best school in that part of Pennsylvania. It was remarkable in that, at a time when the classics formed the core of instruction in almost all secondary schools, it emphasized the natural sciences. The master was an enthusiastic botanist, a popular lecturer on astronomy, and sufficiently adept at mathematics to win the admiration of his community. These subjects he had mastered by dint of systematic application of his really brilliant mind to printed treatises, and by giving rein to an originality which the higher schools of those days did not greatly encourage. Free from the traditions of schools, this village schoolmaster gave to his boys a type of education destined to become popular afterward, but in other places practically unknown to his own day. He taught of plants and animals, of husbandry and astronomy, of literature and mathematics, with a wealth of practical application which linked books with life and study with pleasure.

Jesse Fell wanted to attend this school but lacked funds. He applied for admission, however, offering to pay for his tuition by any kind of work that he could do. An arrangement was made by which Jesse was to work in the master's kitchengarden and help about the house in return for his board and tuition. The work was hard, but not unpleasant. His master introduced him to the joy of intelligent gardening, took him for long tramps in the woods, and allowed him the freedom of his library. The books were a mine of riches to the boy, and Joshua Hoopes' enthusiastic love of plant life stirred to response a kindred feeling in the heart of his pupil. There grew out of this pleasant period in the life of the boy that love of trees which, in the man grown, was to give so richly to the prairies of the West.1

That West continually called him. The idea of going into the new country beyond the mountains grew in him during the two years of his stay at Joshua Hoopes' school. When he had finished the course of study, Friend Hoopes wished him to enter into a partnership with him in a vineyard enterprise which he was then planning. Jesse Fell declined, not being willing to relinquish his dreams of a larger career in a new country; and Friend Hoopes abandoned the scheme "for want of a suitable partner. ' ' To further his plan of going west, Fell taught school for a period of about two years, from 1826 to 1828. The schools

1Richard Edwards, Jesse W. Fell, 3.

he taught were near his home, at ^Buckingham, Colerain, Brown's, and Little Britain. As he understood surveying and other branches of higher mathematics, he was able to command a higher salary than the customary one of two dollars per quarter in cash. In the intervals of teaching he "kept store" for Issachar Price of Callaghersville, while that country merchant was away crying sales; and in all his spare time he was reading diligently.

The two years of teaching were a time of growth and development for the slim, blue-eyed Quaker boy. He tested his powers, enlarged his knowledge, broadened his interests. Altho he later considered himself "but an indifferent pedagogue," he was thought very efficient by those who employed him, except at Colerain. This was an extremely rigid Presbyterian community, with a school in which the New Testament had been the sole text in reading for a long time. Mr. Fell suggested that his pupils bring other books that the reading might be varied, whereupon he was denounced from the local pulpit as a Hicksite who had "expelled the Bible from his school." Without denying the first part of this charge, which was true, Jesse Fell asked that the second accusation might be inquired into officially, and when it was repeated without investigation, he closed the school, very hurt and very indignant.

It was while teaching that he had his first great lesson in the* uses of force and diplomacy. A school bully, larger than himself, had defied him and had been whipped. After the whipping he administered a lecture, so tinctured with kindness and well-directed flattery — "what all men like if skilfully applied," said Mr. Fell in telling afterward of this experience — that the boy resolved to reform his ways. He became later a Methodist Episcopal minister of fine character and widespread influence.

At this time, also, Fell began to speak in public, and especially to debate whenever opportunity offered. At the little country school-houses there were held political debates, as well as other neighborhood meetings ; and at these debates Fell, when he was only seventeen years of age, made for himself a name as a speaker, particularly upon the tariff, that subject so dear to the Pennsylvanian.2

2The principal source of information for Fell's early life is the unfinished manuscript biography begun by Richard Edwards from notes dictated by Mr. Fell, and already noted. It is among the Fell MSS., as are all papers, not otherwise placed, in the following pages.

In the fall of 1828, having saved a little money and borrowed more from his brother Joshua, Jesse Fell started for the West. He was twenty years of age, still slight and rather frail in physique, and unacquainted with the world. He was going to seek his fortune in an unknown country, with no definite trade or profession as an asset. His family, with a helpful confidence in his ability to do what he wished to do, bade him godspeed. He spent the last night before starting for the West with a dear friend, R. Henry Carter, with whom he talked far into the night, of old days and days to come. In the morning he set out for Pittsburg. A young man by the name of Drummond, from Washington, started with him, but soon became discouraged and returned to his home.3

This first stage of the journey was accomplished on foot, except for a few miles at the end, when, very footsore, Fell wavered in his resolve not to spend his money until he was started upon the farther pilgrimage. He entered Pittsburg upon the deck of a little canal boat. This city was then the clearing house of all western enterprise, the gateway to the new land, and a center for securing employment. Here Jesse Fell met a Mr. Reese, who employed him as a book agent. He was to take orders for Malte Brun's Geography, Rollin's Ancient History, Josephus' works, and one other book, the name of which Mr. Fell afterward forgot. Armed with this means of defraying expenses, he boarded a steamer for Wheeling, where he soon fell in with a certain Mr. Howell, the publisher of the Eclectic Observer. Mr. Howell conceived a fancy for the young Quaker, and wished to interest him in his paper. This was a journal of protest against slavery, capital punishment, and any other institution which, in the eyes of the editor, deserved censure. Jesse Fell again decided against the half -gods ; he was bound for the newer and greater West.

While canvassing Wheeling, however, he found time to write his first contribution to a periodical. The subject was one upon which he had often grown eloquent in the country school debates of Chester County: "The Abolition of Imprisonment for Debt." Howell was delighted with its force and fervor. Here was material worth the working — what an abolitionist he

3R. Henry Carter to E. J. Lewis, Mar. 8, 1887. Grace Hurwood to Fannie Fell, Mar. 16, 1913. The latter includes notes of facts related to Miss Hurwood by Mr. Fell. Franklin Price in the Fell Memorial (MS.), 9-10.

would make ! He offered him an assistant editorship. But Fell declined, and went on with his own plans. They carried him, with his books, over the National Road, opened at that time as far as Zanesville. He met interesting people on the road, notably the Honorable Benjamin Ruggles, United States senator from Ohio from 1815 to 1833.

But the people along the National Road, being busily engaged in making homes in the wilderness, had no great thirst for Josephus and Rollin. Mr. Fell perceived that the business of selling books would give him no very speedy or considerable help in winning his way to the West. An illness took his small savings. Consequently, as the winter of 1829-30 drew near, he made his way back to Wheeling, where he spent the cold months in Mr. Howell's office, setting type, writing for the Eclectic Observer, and learning the tricks of a literary trade. At this time he asked his father for money to invest in a part interest in the Amulet, for which he had been agent. Very fortunately, as he himself said afterward, his father was not able to help him at that time, and the idea of this partnership was given up.

When the spring returned, he set off again with his books under his arm, up the Ohio and toward the north, through the counties of Jefferson and Columbiana (where were people of his own religious faith, upon whose friendly interest he might confidently depend), and back to Pittsburg, the headquarters of his book house. Throughout the journey he had kept a notebook, which was later lost. The uncertain fortunes of a traveling agent, his illness of the year before, and the knowledge of the world which his experience was giving him, crystallized what had before been but a vague ambition into a settled determination. He would prepare himself for a profession, which in those days even more generally than at the present time, led to honor, influence and power. He would be a lawyer.4

With this resolution in mind, but with his agent's paraphernalia still in hand, he turned his face westward again in the spring of 1830. He had gone as far as Steubenville when the event occurred which was to prove the means of accomplishing his desire. Walking along the sidewalk with an agent's ready eye for a possible buyer, he espied a young man busily

4Elwood Brown to Jesse W. Fell, Dec. 20, 1829. Jesse Fell to Jesse W. Fell, Jan. 16, 1830. Hannah Fell (an aunt) and Rebecca Fell (his mother) to Fell, Feb. 6, 1830.

chopping wood. He looked not averse to good reading, and the agent approached him in the interests of Josephus, Rollin, and Fell. But the woodchopper was as poor as Fell himself, and the two, finding a common interest in their common situation, fell to discussing ways, means, and prospects. The woodchopper was studying law, he said, in the office of a local firm of excellent reputation. He would like to buy books, but needed every cent he could make for bare living expenses. After he had been admitted to the bar, he was to pay for his tuition; and then he would need all surplus funds for his law library. There was a place for one more student with Stokeley and Marsh, and he would introduce Fell to the firm.5

Fell soon made arrangements for his law course. He was to pay his way in part by doing office work for the firm, and partly by such odd jobs as he might find to do in that frontier community, where there was usually work for all. His two elder brothers helped him from time to time as their limited means permitted. Stokeley and Marsh soon came to value him very highly, while he regarded both the partners with the greatest affection. About a year after beginning his studies in their office, he made a visit to his old home, and was present at the wedding of his brother Joshua, on January 16, 1831. On the return journey his father brought him as far as Shippensburg, a point some forty miles west of Harrisburg.

For another year the law lessons in the office of Stokeley and Marsh went on. The young men in the office had practice in public speaking, for they were eligible to membership in The Forum, a society whose object was the improvement of its members "in speaking and general culture". Jesse Fell made his first speech before this body upon his old theme of the abolition of imprisonment for debt. The presiding officer, a Mr. Wright, who had been a congressman and was later a judge, praised his speech; and Fell tried again. Mr. Stokeley was a local leader in the ranks of the Whigs, who were at that time actively opposing Jackson. There were innumerable stump

5Fell to Jesse Fell, June 26, 1830. The story as told by Edwards implies that the idea of becoming a lawyer did not occur to Fell until the time of his interview with the woodchopper. But a letter to his parents, dated June 6, 1830, indicates that the idea had been with him for some time; while Franklin Price states (Fell Memorial, 9) that he had read Blackstone while still in Chester County.

speeches to be made, and Mr. Stokeley gave to Jesse Fell his share in the work. The younger man conceived a great admiration for Henry Clay, which guided his political opinions and activities while Clay lived. A youth working in Trumbull's bookstore, and at that time a Clay enthusiast with the rest, became his friend. This boy was Edwin M. Stanton, afterward secretary of war under Lincoln.

The autumn of 1832, when Jesse Fell was preparing for his bar examination, was an especially busy season. He took these examinations, with three other aspirants, on the first of October, passed them successfully, was admitted, and started on foot for the West about a fortnight later.6 It was a somewhat risky enterprise, for the payment of his debts took most of his money, leaving very little for the outfit and for traveling expenses. His family helped him as they could, but this was not much. Mr. Marsh, regretting to lose a youth who gave so great promise, had offered him a partnership if he would stay with him, his own partnership with Mr. Stokeley having recently been dissolved. Again Fell chose to answer the call of the ultimate mission. His plan was to travel through parts of Ohio which he had not yet visited and through Indiana and Illinois. He seems not to have thought of settling at once, as he suggested to his father at the time that he "might return by steamboat from St. Louis, as this may be done with little expense." He seems also to have left with Mr. Marsh the idea of possibly returning to enter into a partnership at a later time.

Traveling on foot through Ohio and Indiana, Mr. Fell came to Eastern Illinois in November, 1832. The presidential election had been held the day before he entered the state. At Danville he met Judge McRoberts, a prominent citizen of those days, who told him of a village then but lately founded, named Bloomington. Its location Judge McRoberts thought good ; it was a "coming" town. In Decatur, the next considerable place which Fell visited, this report of Bloomington was repeated. At Jacksonville, Judges Lockwood and Smith made out for him his certificate of admission to the bar of Illinois.7

In Springfield Fell was to talk to John T. Stuart, to whom he had letters of introduction, and whose advice he wished be-

6Certificate of admission to Ohio Bar (James Ross Wells, clerk), dated Oct. 13, 1832. Fell to some member of his family, Sept. 23, 1832. Jesse or Rebecca Fell to Fell, Sept. 2, 1832.

7Nov. 1, 1832. This certificate is also among the Fell MSS.

fore deciding upon a location. At sunset of a warm day in late November, he arrived in the city which was afterward to be the capital of Illinois. John Todd Stuart was sitting before the door of his house when Fell approached, carrying the stout stick and €arpet-bag which were his worldly possessions. Many young men so accoutred trod the streets of the new cities of the West in those days, and Stuart with a characteristic friendliness spoke cordially to this newcomer and asked him what he might do for him. Fell answered that he was looking for John T. Stuart, and would like to be directed to his house. Upon learning that he was speaking to Mr. Stuart, Fell produced a letter from one of Stuart's clients in Philadelphia, introducing the Pennsylvanian and asking the favor of advice and help for him. The two men sat down then and there to discuss the question of location and opportunity.8

Mr. Stuart spoke especially, as had Fell's previous advisors, of the new county of McLean, lately created by the legislature, and its county seat of Bloomington. It was, he said, a very new town, and he was quite sure that there was no lawyer there as yet. With the quick decision which was one of his characteristics, Fell determined to go at once to Bloomington, and rose to depart. Stuart invited him to stay the night, but so eager was Fell to reach his destination, that he declined the proffered rest and entertainment, and trudged that night many miles on his way to Bloomington. At New Salem, pausing for food and rest, he first heard the name of Abraham Lincoln, when the townspeople told him of the company they had sent to the Black Hawk War. From there he went to Pekin, and then sixteen miles farther to Dillon, since called Delavan, in Tazewell County. Here he stopped to visit at the home of William Brown, members of whose family he had known in Pennsylvania. He was almost without money, but came "carrying a knapsack and feeling as big as King Solomon in all his glory, ' ' and full of that buoyancy and faith in the future which made him both representative and leader in his day and place.9

William Evans built the first house in Bloomington in 1826. Four years later, on the twenty-fifth of December, 1830, McLean County was created. The first sale of town lots was on July 4,

8These facts were related to the writer by Judge James Ewing of Bloomington, Dec. 4, 1912. Mr. Stuart had himself told them to Judge Ewing. See also Fell to David Davis, Dec. 16, 1885.

9Joshua Brown to E. J. Lewis, Dec, 1896.

1831. At the close of 1832 the town numbered about one hundred people, while the neighboring settlement of Blooming Grove had fully two hundred and fifty. General Gridley, lately returned from the Black Hawk War, was the leading citizen. When Jesse Fell arrived, William Evans had but lately sold his house to James Allin, who opened a store in it, and laid out the town in lots. There was no resident clergyman at that time, no newspaper, and no lawyer.

Fell's survey of the situation satisfied him that there existed a favorable opening for him, and he returned to Delavan, where William Brown offered him employment for the winter as a tutor to his children. Mr. Brown was the great man of his locality — a man who had glass panes in the windows of his cabin, whose family had "come west" in a carriage, and who employed a teacher to instruct his children. He had brought his family from Pennsylvania in 1828. Later, he became known in central Illinois as "Joseph," because in a year of crop-failure he had sold his good crop of corn for a dollar a bushel, the normal price of grain in early days in Illinois. People for many miles around came to him for food and seed. His home was a social center. From it the young people started on long rides to lectures or parties at Pekin or at distant farmhouses and settlements. The eldest son, Joshua, was the leading spirit among the younger men. Eliza, the eldest of the sisters, was a girl of rare loveliness and ability, whose early death a few years later brought great sorrow to the whole neighborhood. The children of two other families attended Jesse Fell's classes that winter. In the Brown home he found congenial friends, encouragement, and good counsel, as well as the material help he needed.10

When the spring came he went back to Bloomington, and opened his office in a small brick building at the northeast corner of Main and Front streets. The small legal library, which Mr. Marsh had agreed to send him when he was located, to be paid for when practice gave him means, arrived during the spring, after a long journey down the Ohio and up the Mississippi and the Illinois to Pekin, whence it was carted overland to Bloomington. Fell boarded with James Allin, who, in addition to his other activities, kept the only inn of that locality, at what came afterward to be known as "the old Stipp place."

With the growth of population and the inevitable troubles

10E. M. Prince, "Hester Vernon (Brown) Fell", in Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of McLean County, II, 1024-27.

in adjusting titles and claims to lands, there came legal business in plenty to Bloomington 's first lawyer.11 On the second of May, 1833, he made his initial appearance in an Illinois courtroom. This was at the third session of the Circuit Court in McLean County, which sat for three days, and disposed of several cases. Fell was attorney in two of these cases, securing favorable judgment in both by default. At the next session, in September, he had a number of cases, which he managed so well that his position and clientele were henceforth assured.12

John T. Stuart continued to be his friend, furnishing him letters of introduction and recommending him to clients. He became known as a good judge of land, and located innumerable farms for his clients, making the entries at the land office in Danville. Before long he began to acquire land for himself, and to exhibit the outward and visible signs of prosperity. He bought

"John T. Stuart told Judge James Ewing that when he attended court in Bloomington six months after Fell had settled there, Fell told him he was worth about $60,000 above all debts. The statement is. manifestly inaccurate, as to the time of the occurrence; but it gives some idea of the rapidity with which fortunes were built up in the prosperous days of the early land-exchange. Fell was "worth $6o,ooo" in 1837.

The first professional card used by Mr. Fell gives as references the following lawyers: Richard Dorsey, Baltimore; William Dorsey, Richard Sturgeon and Amos Jeans, Philadelphia; William P. Dixon, New York; Willis Hall, Albany, New York ; D. B. Leight and Company, Louisville ; Hon. John C. Wright and Hon. Samuel Stokeley, Ohio ; and Hon. John T. Stuart, Illinois.

12The first session of Circuit Court in McLean County was held Sept. 22, 1831, at Mr. Allin's house, but with no docket; at the second,, held Sept. 27, 1832, the jury tried one appealed case, dismissed several on the docket, and continued one. Record 1, Circuit Court, McLean County, 1-14. Fell to his parents, Nov. 17, 1833.

An incident related by Fell to Miss Grace Hurwood, and repeated from her notes in the letter of March 16, 1913, referred to elsewhere, goes to show that although a Quaker, Fell was not averse to defending himself in traditional ways. He and another young lawyer became engaged in an altercation in which his opponent accused him of lying. "I told him that would have to be settled outside the courtroom, so when court adjourned, we promptly went out to settle it in the time-honored way. Neither of us gained much advantage over the other, as while he was the stronger, I was the quicker, and we were parted before we could finish. We had fought hard enough however to be willing to shake hands. In the morning we were indicted for fighting 'to the disturbance and alarm of the people'. My defense was that nobody was at all alarmed,, much to Lincoln's amusement, and the indictment was quashed."

his first horse, McLean, on which he took those long night rides to Danville, Springfield, Urbana and Vandalia, that soon began to tell sadly upon his health. His restless energy responded to the insistent demands of a growing, changing, developing country. Some prophetic idea of its possibilities, and much boyish eagerness to realize his dreams speedily, urged him to an activity which was the continual wonder of all his friends. He was interested in everything that promised to help the country of his adoption, and developed early that loyalty to Bloomington and McLean county which characterized him in so much that he did.

An instance of this loyalty to Bloomington occurred early in his career. In 1834 an effort was made to take from McLean County its territory west of the third principal meridian, and add it to Tazewell County. This would have made the western boundary line of McLean County scarce eight miles from Bloomington, thus changing its central location to a western one, and so furnishing a possible reason for removing the county seat to another town at some future time. Mr. Fell opposed the movement valiantly from the first. Fearing that its friends might push the measure through the legislature if that body were left unguarded, he spent most of the winter of 1834-35 in Vandalia, where his efforts and influence were such that the project failed of realization. McLean County owes to him, consequently, and to those who worked with him, the distinction of being the largest county in the state.13

The winter in Vandalia had results other than the preservation of the territorial integrity of McLean County. John T. Stuart of Springfield and Abraham Lincoln of New Salem were both at. that time members of the legislature from Sangamon County. The two men roomed together, and Jesse Fell lived in the same house. These men were very interesting to the easterner, who noted the sharp contrast between Stuart's attractive person and polished manners and Lincoln's big-boned, angular, wrinkled face and direct ways. Stuart introduced Fell to Lincoln, and the two became almost at once great friends, for there was in them a fundamental likeness which transcended all differences of creed, training or destiny. The friendship of the trio lasted to the death of the president in 1865, and was cemented by much mutual service. In 1838, when Stuart was a candidate for Congress against Stephen A. Douglas, both Fell