Iuka township lies along the east line of the county and north of Romine. Its
survey numbers are township 2 north, range 4 east. It was a part of the Maguire
precinct until 1873, when township organization was adopted. Skillet Fork is the
principal stream. It passes north and south near the middle of the township, and
Fulton, Jamison and Dumb's creeks drain into it. This township was about
three-fourths timber, but is now cleared up and less than one-half is in timber.
Ramsey's prairie on the east, projects into Iuka from Clay county, and Romine
prairie on the west from Stevenson township. The part of Romine prairie in Iuka
was first called Bone prairie, on account of the many bones of animals that
littered its surface. About 1820 Patrick Conner, a noted hunter and trapper,
located in this township, which with Romine on the south and Omega on the north,
made it a hunter's paradise. Mr. Jamison settled on Jamison's creek in 1821, but
he was killed by the Indians in 1823. A man by the name of Tadlock, built a
cabin on the Vincennes road in 1823, but left no record of his life in the minds
of the people.
Leonard P. Pyles, a Tennesseean, settled in the township
in 1822. He was a man of much force of character and was for many years active
in the forming of the new county and directing its affairs. After seven years'
residence he moved to Missouri, as this county was settling up too fast, and
game was getting scarce. He died in 1872. Some of his grandchildren still live
in this county.
In 1825, Jesse Tinkler moved here from Indiana, and
Solomon Smith, wife and six children came in a four horse wagon from Tennessee,
in 1829. He died in 1846. He first stopped near Salem, but soon moved to Iuka.
George and Ann McGuire and eight children came from Tennessee in 1829. They
stopped one winter in Tennessee prairie, then settled in Iuka, on section 8.
They both died in 1833. Mrs. McGuire of cholera.
Thomas L. Middleton,
born in North Carolina but raised in Tennessee, came to Illinois in 1831, in a
six horse wagon, and was nearly lost in crossing the Ohio river. He settled
first in Haines township, but came to Iuka in 1834. He was a preacher and a
doctor, and devoted to the chase. He died in 1876, seventy-seven years old. He
had four sons and four daughters, now all dead, but several grandchildren and
great-grandchildren are living in the county. One of the sons, B. F. Middleton,
long preserved a gun with which his father killed forty-seven deer out of
fifty-one shots, a record that one might well be proud of.
John B.
Middleton came from Tennessee in 1831, but this family was unfortunate, as most
of their children died young. Eight of them are buried in the Fulton graveyard.
Denning Baker in 1832, and Thomas Chapman in 1838, came to Iuka. Chapman
died in 1872. He had twelve children, ten of whom grew to manhood and womanhood.
Rolling Mattingly, a hatter, and Jesse Breese, who was a maker of wooden mould
boards for plows, and was also a hunter. James Songer, the father of the Songers
of Kinmundy, settled here very early. He was a miller.
Between 1830 and
1842 the Litterells, Daggetts, Eblins, Youngs, Hollidays and the Cheeleys
settled in this township, all well known names of respectable families in the
township. The first school was a select school taught at old Stringtown by
Cynthia Cooper, in 1841. The school-house was an old log cabin. The first
school-house was the Cooper school in section 8. It was built of unhewn logs,
and had a puncheon floor. The first school taught there was by Samuel Dewel, in
1845. The first graveyard was the McGuire burying ground, but it has not been
used for more than fifty years.
Doctor Middleton preached the first
sermon in a log cabin a short distance northeast of the village of Iuka. The
Iuka cemetery now occupies the ground where he preached, and he is buried within
a few feet of the spot on which he stood when he preached the first sermon
delivered in the township.
William Finley, the most active of the early
preachers of the Cumberland Presbyterians, often preached in Iuka township.
Preacher Middleton built the first mill, and ground corn for the settlers. The
mill had a capacity of ten or fifteen bushels per day.
The first church
built in the township was a Cumberland Presbyterian church. A. B. Taylor was the
first blacksmith and John McGuire owned the first grocery store.
Frederickton was laid out in 1840 by Robert Shields, and in ten years had one
hundred inhabitants. It was a stage stand, and the largest and best business
point in the township. Being a stage point toughs from older settlements drifted
there. James Fisher built the first house, and F. D. Newell was the first
storekeeper. The first post-office in the township was established here in 1845,
with John Lawson as postmaster. After the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad was built
the town began to die, many of the houses were moved to Xenia, and others torn
down, and today not a vestige of Frederickton remains. Greendale, a flag station
on the Ohio & Mississippi, now Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern, Railroad, was a
post-office established in 1873, but now nothing is left of Greendale but a side
track and a house. On the completion of the Ohio & Mississippi, now the
Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Railroad, which runs through the township east and
west, about two miles south of the north line and nearly parallel with it, a
town was laid out on sections 17 and 18, on land owned by D. J. and Alfred
Middleton, and in honor of the family, was called Middleton. The post-office was
called New Middleton. The town was laid out by Songer and Camp in 1856. Jerry
Allmon built a small frame house the same year, and kept a store in it. James A.
Middleton opened another store soon after. Ned Young kept a boarding house about
this time, and a man by the name of Coon opened a hotel. In 1858 James S.
Jackson, afterward a lawyer and a captain in the One Hundred and Eleventh
Regiment, opened a blacksmith shop. The Fyke brothers built a sawmill in 1859.
Harrison Eagan was the first Cumberland Presbyterian preacher, and T. L.
Middleton the first Methodist Episcopal minister. L. L. Morgan and T. L.
Middleton were the first doctors, and Mary Finch the first teacher. Miss Mina N.
Lear taught a select school in 1859. Solomon Smith was the first justice. In
1857 a post-office was established with P. E. Cutler, founder of Cutler & Hays,
of Salem, as postmaster. In 1867 the Legislature changed the name of Middleton
to Iuka, at the request of the soldiers who had been in the battle of Iuka in
the Civil war, and thus the township also got its name.
There are a
Cumberland Presbyterian, a Methodist Episcopal and a Christian church in the
village. The first was built in 1863, the second in 1877 and the last in 1895.
In 1866 Collens Brothers built a brickmill of fifty barrel capacity.
This mill has changed hands several times but in all changes the Iuka flour has
maintained its excellent reputation. Iuka is the greatest point for shipping
ties in the county, the average being about one thousand per month. Outside of
the village of Iuka there are three churches in the township, a Cumberland
Presbyterian, a Methodist Episcopal and a German Lutheran.
The village
has good schools, a bank and a dozen business houses, and numbers about eight
hundred inhabitants, wide awake and industrious, and with a justifiable pride in
their beautiful little village.
Extracted 27 Mar 2020 by Norma Hass from 1909 Brinkerhoff's History of Marion County, Illinois, pages 204-206.