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Meet Me in Heaven
Confronting Death along the
Galena Trail Frontier
1825 – 1855
Presented at the
2008 Illinois History Symposium
Illinois State Historical Society
by
Patricia L. Goitein
Editor, Galena Trail Newsletter
1625 W. Columbia Terrace
Peoria,
Illinois
Mead Cemetery, Marshall County
Preface
Lured by glowing
testaments of agricultural and
mineral wealth in Illinois,
thousands of immigrants flooded
into north central and
northwestern Illinois between
1825 and 1855. A great many of
them followed the Galena Trail
and Coach Roads extending from
Peoria to Galena, to the Lead
Mines and prairie farms, where,
instead of wealth and happiness,
many found an early death for
themselves and their children.
The settlers generally met their
death in one of three ways:
accidents, disease, and in
confrontations with the
Indians. Of the three, disease
was by far the most common cause
of death, and confrontations
with the Indians or with a
criminal element was their least
likely fate. All of the
settlers found themselves in the
midst of wet prairies and river
bottoms where malaria and
pneumonia were endemic. Few, if
any, escaped debilitating
disease, and they soon found
that, newspapers and emigrant
guidebooks aside, the fever and
ague and malignant fevers could
not be avoided by making
adjustments to their style of
living or by practicing
Christian Temperance.
Travel itself was dangerous
because it exposed the
individual to an increased
incidence of accident and
disease, including food
poisoning. Generally the Galena
Trail was a safe road to travel,
and I have yet to read of a
stage coach robbery or any
significant incidents of crime
involving travelers along the
Trail. Taverns were located at
convenient intervals, which led
to the road’s safety and
popularity. Fatal accidents,
although infrequent, did occur,
as travelers became lost in
winter blizzards, drowned, or
were struck by lightening or
tornados.
The first indication that I had
of repeated trouble along the
Trail was from the incidence of
marked and unmarked graves at
tavern sites. Since individuals
are and always have been much
more likely to die at home
rather than while in transit,
the repeated incidence of death
at taverns was disturbing.
Property owners repeatedly told
stories of deaths that had
occurred on or near the site,
and of nearby graves. There were
small burying grounds at both
the Meredith Tavern in Peoria
County and at Isaac Chamber’s
Tavern in Ogle County. Graves
had been located near a historic
home on LaSalle Prairie that had
been used as a Tavern in Peoria
County. County records and
published death notices reported
the deaths of travelers, many of
them strangers. Violence was not
associated with any of these
deaths.
Clearly, it was
time to take a closer look at
life and death along the Trail
and try to determine just how
short and bitter the immigrant’s
experience might have been.
This is what I found……….
Frontier
literature abounds with stories
told by old settlers recalling
their early days in the West.
They recalled hardships and
triumphs, making light of their
failures, and describing
themselves as “the young, the
enterprising and the go-ahead
poor, who found the East too
strait for them, and they [had]
pushed boldly to the West.”
Although few of the old
settlers seemed to want to
return to that “golden age” in
anything other than their fond
memories, the picture that they
painted of the frontier was
usually heart-warming and
encouraging.
The picture, however, became
golden only with the passage of
time and circumstance, allowing
the fortunate survivors of
Illinois’ malarial swamps to
bask in their survival and in
their material accomplishments.
Frontier reality was much more
bleak.
“They came here
with their families
and left their
tracks of civilization for you
to follow.”
George D. Read, President, Old
Settler’s Society of Buffalo
Grove, Ogle County, 1881
American
settlement along the Trail had a
dramatic beginning when a band
of 126 Virginians came and died
at Peoria in 1797. The
would-be settlers arrived after
a “grueling journey through
the woods, prairie and swamp
only to be virtually annihilated
by a putrid and malignant fever
(probably diphtheria) that fell
upon them in the overcrowded
cabins that had been opened
hospitably for their reception
and comfort [by Peoria’s
French Metis fur traders, ed].”
Twenty one years
later, permanent American
settlement began with the
arrival of Abner Eads and others
who came north to Fort
Clark/Peoria in 1819.
Settlement north of Peoria was
slow, and by 1830, most of the
Trail between Peoria and Galena
was still largely empty of
Americans.
Land grants in the Military
Tract south of the Indian
Boundary Line (that had
separated Federal from Indian
lands since the Treaty of St.
Louis in 1816)
were dedicated to veterans of
the War of 1812, who usually
sold their grants to land
speculators in the East, rather
than settle out here themselves.
The land held by speculators was
slow to come onto the market and
sell, and remained largely empty
until the late 1830’s. Public
land north of the Indian
Boundary Line became available
for settlement after the Black
Hawk War of 1832. The first land
sales for this northern region
were registered at Galena and
Chicago in 1835.
Early American
settlement along the Trail came
in two phases. The first
settlers were predominately from
southern Illinois, Kentucky,
western Pennsylvania, western
Virginia, and the Ohio River
Valley.
They were the border people
described by David Hackett
Fischer in his study,
Albion’s Seed.
In Illinois they were called
Suckers, and they were a
distinct Anglo-American cultural
group that differed in language
and customs from the New England
and New York settlers who
followed them in the second wave
of immigration. Most of the New
Englanders settled along the
Trail after the Black Hawk War,
and came prepared to purchase
improved claims or land patents
from the speculators or Suckers,
who then moved on to new and
more challenging frontiers.
In 1825, the Lead Mine Region
of northwestern Illinois and
southwestern Wisconsin was
occupied primarily by seasonal
miners and smelters from
southern Illinois and Missouri
who worked on leased Federal
lands. This seasonal occupation
continued until after 1835, when
public lands could be purchased
and agricultural settlement
began. Whether they were
Yankees, Suckers, or migrant
miners, all American settlers
experienced great pain,
suffering and hardship due to
endemic disease that plagued
Illinois.
The American
frontier population that we are
studying in this paper was
highly mobile, and moved over a
rapidly growing and changing
frontier. The Illinois
population as a whole more than
doubled between 1830 and 1840,
nearly doubled between 1840 and
1850, and again, more than
doubled between 1850 and 1860.
Much of that growth took place
in northern Illinois. The
population development in Galena
between 1822 and 1828 predicted
this later tide of immigration
along the Trail. Lead Mine
Region settlement began with
exploratory settlement, starting
with approximately 20 miners in
1822, 200 in 1825, followed by a
virtual explosion of 10,000
individuals in 1828.
In 1830, Peoria and Jo Daviess
counties each had less than 6
residents per square mile, while
the ensuing 100 miles along the
Trail were virtually empty of
Americans.
After the Black Hawk War, the
Indians ceded all lands in
Illinois, and American settlers
flooded in, quickly developing
the land between Peoria and
Galena. In 1840, Marshall,
Bureau, Lee, Ogle, Stephenson,
and Carroll counties grew from
less than 2 to 6 - 18 residents
per square mile.
In 1850, toward the end of the
frontier period, the United
States Census reported 81,905
people living in the counties
along the Galena Trail.
“They call our
Grove a Paradise.”
John Garner, Waddams Grove, Jo
Daviess County, December 11,
1836
Americans were
urged to move here by rumors of
good, cheap land selling for as
little as $1.25/acre, rumors
that were often generated by
friends and relatives who wrote
home with glowing tales of
prosperity in Illinois. Often,
as with Mr. Garner, the same
settlers also speculated in
land, paying for their
immigration and improvements
with the profits of a quick
turnover in land claims. Not
unexpectedly, they emphasized
Illinois’ promise, while
ignoring or glossing over the
debilitating diseases and
personal desolation that they
and many of the settlers around
them were experiencing.
The personal
testaments of the early settlers
were supported and magnified by
newspaper accounts and land
speculators’ advertisements for
western lands. Negative issues
such as rampant disease, faulty
land titles, outrageous interest
rates, and tax issues associated
with internal improvements
programs were ignored or even
further trivialized. The glowing
testaments were in part
counterbalanced by travelers’
accounts of the Illinois
frontier. Hearty travelers such
as Charles Fenno Hoffman,
who traveled along the Galena
Trail in 1834, wrote interesting
and entertaining accounts of
their western adventures. They
wrote about bad food, crowded
and dirty places of
entertainment, bad roads, and
riverboats that never seemed to
run on time, bugs, snakes, and
prairie fires.
Although their descriptions of
life on the Illinois frontier
were often more realistic than
those of local boosters, they
still were interesting and drew
adventurous settlers to the
West.
In 1837, Samuel
H. Davis emigrated from Virginia
to Peoria, purchased the
moribund Peoria Journal
and renamed the newspaper the
Peoria Register and
Northwestern Gazetteer.
His intent was to publish a
western newspaper dedicated to
promoting the west. His
prospectus states that he came
to Peoria “partly from the
solicitations of several
gentlemen of Peoria, but more
from the great commercial and
political attractions of the
place itself. Believing that it
may be made to the north-west
what Cincinnati is to the west,
he is desirous of connecting
himself with its prosperity,
sensible that his efforts to
promote its welfare will also
promote his own. He is aware of
the great interest that prevails
throughout the Atlantic states
in regard to information from
the west, and that immense
numbers are yearly seeking homes
in this el dorado of our
land. His intention therefore,
will be to make a newspaper
which will interest them –
literally a western or rather,
northwestern newspaper, devoted
to topographical and statistical
descriptions of the country with
such portraits of adaptations to
the purpose of agriculture,
trade, and manufactures as he
may be able to obtain.” Mr.
Davis goes on to list categories
of interest from soil and water
quality to manners, education,
and estimated expenses.
The Peoria Register and
Northwestern Gazetteer
was published from 1837 to 1842,
and in issue after issue, Davis
faithfully and enthusiastically
promoted northwestern Illinois.
Davis was more open about his
promotions than were other
editors of his day, but all
newspapers were expected to
promote immigration, settlement,
and development in their
region.
“The situation
of this place is beautiful
beyond description.”
Illinois
in 1837
Finally,
emigrant guides lured thousands
of settlers to Illinois with
glowing descriptions of the
natural wealth of the country.
Reverend John Mason Peck, a
pioneer Baptist evangelist,
wrote several valuable emigrant
guides to Illinois and Missouri.
In 1831 he wrote that “A poor
man, with a ‘cabin and
cornfield,’ and thousands of
this class live on government
land without rent or
molestation, may easily support
a large family in wholesome
provisions. Two or three cows,
and some hogs, which cost but
little, and live and grow fat on
the luxuriant range are a
necessary appendage.”
Peck’s immigrants were healthy,
well fed, and well on their way
to being prosperous.
In 1835, Charles
Joseph Latrobe described the
immigrant’s ideal of a
prosperous and healthy first
season. Our Jonathon, having
chosen his settlement site,
brings his family out, “we
suppose him to bring them out in
the spring, which is the best
season, as far as health and
comfort are concerned; and will
allow him plenty of time to
provide the necessary
accommodations for food and
shelter before the winter; and
we will suppose that before the
trees lose their leaves, a
comfortable family house of logs
or clapboard with the necessary
out buildings, fencing,
furniture, and a few acres of
maize and potatoes…….show that
the first year has not been
unemployed. The second, more
land is brought into
cultivation, an orchard and
garden are planted, and his
stock of cattle and hogs
increase.”
In 1838, A.D.
Jones wrote of Illinois “No
richer soil, no blander climate,
no greater variety of beautiful
landscape, no more exhaustless
mines of wealth and comfort
beneath the soil, does any
section of the same extent in
the wide world afford.”
While admitting that the river
bottoms were unhealthy, Jones
boldly predicted that “In due
time, the indomitable force of
mind will conquer all the
difficulties which now prevent
the river settlements,” and
the children of the prairie
pioneers would lead “our
great nation.”
“I have been
called to pass through many
afflicting trails,
but the Lord has
sustained me through all.”
Mary B. Waterbury Cushman, Ogle
County, August 18, 1839
Glowing testaments and
exaggerated rumors of
agricultural and mineral wealth
aside, the Illinois frontier was
dangerous for the American
settlers, and those immigrating
here placed their health and
safety in great peril.
American
settlers along the Galena Trail
rarely faced death at the hands
of the Indians, many of whom
lived along the Trail until
1836. Early immigrants,
particularly New Englanders,
maintained a guarded, but
generally peaceful, coexistence
with their Indian neighbors.
North of Peoria, the Indians
were very numerous, especially
in what is now Bureau County.
They traded furs and provisions
with their early Anglo
neighbors, often startling
settlers with their quiet
appearance seemingly out of
nowhere, appearing by the
fireside for meals, settling
into the log cabin taverns along
the Trail on cold winter nights.
The Black Hawk
War is a deviation from this
general rule of guarded but
peaceful coexistence. An
estimated 70 Americans died
during the war, and the Trail
became a corridor filled with
fear and destruction. Most of
the casualties were soldiers,
militiamen, or couriers, but
there were significant civilian
casualties south of the Indian
Boundary Line, in the
Bureau/Putnam neighborhood. AHMS
missionary, Rev. John McDonald
of Putnam County described the
scene as follows: “Being
directly on the frontier,
immediately on the first
massacre, the whole county was
in a state of utmost confusion.
Families were to be seen flying
en every direction from the
savages. With their little
moveables, women and children
hastily hurdled together in
whatever vehicle came to hand.
Oh, it was a mournful sight.
After the first panic, however,
things became a little more
settled. The inhabitants mostly
collected in groups of fifty to
three times that number and
erected temporary forts. But a
very great degree of uneasiness
and anxiety still pervaded the
public mind. Farmers were
obliged to leave their farms at
the season of planting and
tilling……All for awhile was
distraction and confusion, so
much so that every serious
thought for the soul seemed to
be last in fearful apprehensions
of temporal danger…..there has
been a visible and mournful
decline in religion.”
Dad Jo Smith and Charles Boyd
stayed on their claims
throughout much of the conflict,
as couriers, frightened
settlers, and militiamen
traveled up and down the Trail,
seeking shelter and word of
enemy movements, but eventually,
even they had to leave.
Most of the
Pottawatomie and Winnebago
Indians along the Trail did not
take up arms against the
settlers. The settlers in the
Bureau/Putnam area, however,
were terrorized by Mike Girty’s
band of renegade Pottawatomies
that ranged out of Indiantown
(now Tiskilwa), Illinois. The
non-combatant Pottawatomies,
apparently unable to control
Girty, left Bureau, finding
shelter at Chicago or west of
the Mississippi. Pottawatomie
chief Shabbona, his son, and
nephew, rode from cabin to cabin
and settlement to settlement,
warning settlers to evacuate
immediately. In doing so,
Shabonna saved countless lives.
Girty’s band probably consisted
of no more than two dozen angry
Pottawatomie braves, among them
Shabonna’s brother in law, and a
few Sac, Fox, and Kickapoos who
shared their resentment of the
American settlers. After
killing at least 18 people, and
attempting to ambush dozens
more, including Charles Boyd and
his sons,
Girty’s band joined Black Hawk
and was dispersed at the fateful
battle of Bad Axe.
Settlers coming to the Illinois
frontier were more apt to fall
victim to accidental death than
to be murdered by hostile
Indians.
Death notices and news reports
published in Peoria, Galena,
Lacon, and Princeton, record
death by a wide variety of
causes including drowning,
runaway teams of horses, mine
cave-ins, and accidental
shootings. The prairies were an
unforgiving environment in
inclement weather, as travelers
became lost and froze to death
in snowstorms, died by
lightening during thunderstorms,
or occasionally were caught in
the flames of the prairie
wildfires set each fall by the
Indians to flush out game. The
prairies themselves were
difficult to navigate, even
along the Galena Trail. The
tall prairie grasses often
reached over the heads of
mounted travelers, and when a
traveler lost the main trail, he
could wander about, hopelessly,
lost for days.
Many became mired down in
swamp-like prairie sloughs, were
bitten by rattlesnakes, and
hounded by prairie wolves. These
frontier conditions along the
Trail persisted well into the
1840’s.
Malaria
poisoned the air and carried
sickness
and death on its wings.
H.C. Bradsby, History of
Bureau County
Disease was the most important
cause of death in all localities
along the Trail between 1825 and
1850.
In fact, the disease
conditions encountered by the
ill-fated Virginians in Peoria
in 1797 persisted throughout the
period. Malaria was
endemic throughout the region
and was the single most common
disease faced by settlers.
Diarrheas and dysenteries of
adults and children, along with
pneumonia assured that the early
settlers’ high birth rate was
nearly equaled by the death
rate.
Published death notices mark
tuberculosis as a frequent cause
of death, along with the
periodic cholera and measles
epidemics, and occasionally
smallpox. Women died in and
following childbirth. Newspaper
ads of the day remind us that
debilitating parasitic worms
were part of the human condition
along the Trail and would have
been a contributing factor to
premature death at any age.
Lastly, settlers suffered from
milk sickness and other forms of
food poisonings after mistakenly
eating spoiled food, or
poisonous mushrooms and plants,
and, in the case of milk
sickness, after eating the meat
of animals that had eaten the
poisonous White Snakeroot. In
1843, William Oliver wrote that
he did not think that “the
average duration of life is so
long in Illinois as in more
temperate climates” adding
that “the natives very
generally appear several years
older than they really are. A
man of eighty is not so often to
be met with.”
Special note
must be taken of malaria, most
commonly known at the time as
the fever and ague.
The disease arrived on the
frontier with early settlers
from the south and border
states,
and once established, was a
menace in swampy areas on the
river bottoms and the wet
prairies along the Trail until
after World War II. While the
fevers could be deadly, more
often they were debilitating,
and nearly all of the old
settlers referred to surviving
“the shakes.” Malaria was
treated (but not cured) with
quinine or Peruvian barks and
patent medicines that were
widely available. The late
summer and fall months were
called the sickly season,
when nearly everyone suffered
from one form of disease and
malarial fever or another.
These were the settlers’ “days
of trial,” as John V.
Farwell called them, when entire
families were sick with the
fever.
Julia Ballance remembered that
upon entering Illinois, their
first stopping place was not
calculated to rouse their
courage. “The ague was
widespread and there was not an
able bodied person in the town.
As a consequence, provisions
were scarce and we went on our
way with many forebodings.”
In the
fall of 1821, Dr. Horatio
Newhall observed that that in
Bond County “at least one
fourth of the inhabitants
require medical attendance
during the sickly season.”
Conditions such as these
were prevalent along the Trail
as well. In 1835, Latrobe noted
that the Illinois prairies had
been “marked by the ravages
of the autumnal scourge of the
rich and teeming West, the fever
and ague; and every cottage was
full of ghastly faces and
emaciated forms.”
Those who survived the malarial
fevers did so in a debilitated
condition that would have left
them easy prey to secondary
infection and disease. In the
fall of 1838, a particularly
virulent fever struck, raising
Peoria’s death rate for that
year to approximately 5%.
In 1838, a settler was twice a
likely to die of disease in
Peoria than he would had he
remained in Boston.
Charles
Ballance, preferred to blame
disease on the poor habits of
the distressed settlers. In a
letter dated December 24, 1831,
the former Kentuckian, an early
Peoria settler and land
speculator, tried to explain the
causes of so much sickliness in
this rich and beautiful region.
Ballance tells his old
friend, Abram Fite, that “from
what I have said with regard to
the health of this place and the
common report respecting this
country, you may be afraid to
come here. On this
subject, I would say, there is a
great deal of fever and ague in
this state during the months of
July, August and September, but
no other diseases seem to be
prevalent; but I feel but little
apprehension on this subject,
for I do not believe that the
fever and ague of this country
is so much owing to the country
as to the people. They seem to
do nothing with a view to
preserve their health, but
expose themselves to all
situations and to all kinds of
weather. I never enjoyed better
health in life, than since I
left Kentucky. And the town of
Peoria has an appearance of
being a healthy place.” It is
“indisputably the handsomest
place I ever saw.”
Rev. John Mason
Peck in his 1834 Gazetteer
of Illinois stressed
prevention of disease, while
endorsing the overall
healthiness of the state.
Although he recognized that
disease and unhealthy conditions
existed in Illinois, he strongly
implied that sickliness could
easily be avoided by
engaging in a healthy lifestyle.
He told his readers that “more
than one half of the sickness
endured by the people is caused
by imprudence, bad management,
and the want of proper nursing.
Emigrants from the northern
states or from Europe will find
it advantageous to protect
themselves from the cool and
humid atmosphere at night, to
provide close dwellings yet,
when the atmosphere is close,
have their rooms, and especially
their sleeping rooms, well
ventilated and invariably wear
thin clothing in the day, and
put on thicker apparel at night
or when exposed to wet.” And
that “families are seldom
sick who live in comfortable
houses with tight floors and
well-ventilated rooms, and who
upon a change of weather, and
especially in a time of rain,
make a little fire in the
chimney, though it may be in the
midst of summer.” Finally,
after describing patriarchal
Illinois families who had
prospered and multiplied in
Biblical proportions, Peck tells
his readers that he is
“prepared to speak decidedly in
favor of the general health of
Illinois.”
“If we were all
to be sick, I don’t know how
we
could be taken care of.
I trust some of
us may be spared to minister
to
the others.
Ellen Bigelow, Peoria, June 27,
1835
The American
settlers used a variety of
supportive measures to assure
their health and safety, and to
minimize their losses in case of
war, pestilence or similar
disasters. They immigrated in
groups, families and colonies,
and they established community
governments that saw to the
needs of isolated, sick and
helpless individuals and
families who had nowhere else to
turn for help.
The American
settlers generally immigrated to
Illinois and the Galena Trail in
extended and intergenerational
family groups, providing the
individuals with a strong
network of family ties that
bound them together as its
members protected and sustained
each other in time of trouble.
These families generally settled
fairly close to one another,
helped each other acquire land,
raise crops, and nursed each
other through childbirth,
disease and death.
The Aiken family
is a case in point. The Aikens
came to Peoria from New England
in the early 1830’s. The family
included: Joshua Aiken
(59 years of age in 1830) and
wife Jane Pinkerton and
their son Henry S.;
Widow Betsy
Pinkerton Aiken, (c 40
years of age) widow of John,
Joshua’s brother, and sister of
Jane and her teenage children
Sarah, 16, Mary, James, 18, and
Joshua, 17; brother
Jonathan Aiken and his family,
Mark Aiken, bachelor
cousin of Joshua, and the
Little family, Robert and
Clarissa referred to as Aunt
Clarissa and Uncle R. in Sarah
Aiken’s letter of January 24,
1835.
Joshua Aiken and Robert E.
Little were business partners
and land speculators, owning
extensive lands, as well as a
grist mill and a saw mill in
Peoria.
Joshua and Jane Pinkerton Aiken
and Widow Betsy Pinkerton and
her family lived next to each
other in Clinton County, New
York in 1830
before immigrating to Illinois,
where they also initially lived
near each other.
Illinois proved to be a hard
frontier for the Aikens to
conquer.
Betsy’s daughter, Sarah, wrote
long and often painful letters
home to her friend Julia in
Keeseville, N.Y. Her letters
chronicled her struggles to
survive and adjust to the West
and her new circumstances.
School, friends, society and
life evaporated around her.
Still more painfully, Sarah’s
letters record the death of her
family.
On January 24,
1835
Sarah Aiken wrote that “We
are now living by our Aunts Jane
and Clarissa. They arrived here
in November. Uncle R’s brother
in law and wife also came with
him and are also living by us.
So we have quite a little
neighborhood about us.”
Sarah goes on to say that
“Ma had the bilious fever last
August. While she was
convalescent, I was taken sick,
lasted a fortnight. All
emigrants are subject more or
less to the bilious fever and
fevers and ague. I had a few
shakes of the ague, but slight
however.”
Although already
in poor health,
Widow Betsy
Pinkerton Aiken
moved her family from Peoria to
a new home on a farm located
about 20 miles west of town. She
had probably acquired the farm
with the help of her brother in
law, Joshua, but the move was
not a happy one.
On
September 27, 1835, Sarah wrote: “Sister
M. and myself, as I have before
told you, take the management of
the household affairs, as Ma’s
health does not admit of her
doing much more than
sewing…..You know I always hated
the idea of farming and I assure
you Julia, I much more hate the
reality and ever shall.”
While she tries to think
positively, Sarah tell Julia
that it was “me, and
is still who remonstrated so
much against coming to this
detestable and dismal
Illinois……..Brother James and
Mother’s health continue in the
same delicate state with but
little alteration either from
better or worse.”
March 21, 1836: “You probably have not
heard of the decease of dear
brother James. Yes, dear Julia,
we have again been called to
mourn the death of a near and
dear relative. He died on the
21st last month, the
day after (the 22nd)
he would have been twenty two
years old. He had been gradually
declining since last summer, and
though not confined to the bed,
till about three months before
his death, yet we saw the ‘Fele
Destroyer’ had marked him
‘his.’ Through all his
sickness, he was all patience,
with an entire resignation to
the ‘will of Heaven’ and for the
last three weeks of his life,
longing to be released from this
tenement of clay. Sister M’s
health has been quite poor the
last three months back. Has had
a great deal of the ---
headache, with a general
debility throughout her
systems. She is now in Peoria,
with Aunt Jane Aiken, has been
there the last five weeks, is
now rather on the gain, being
under the care of a skillful
Physician. Mother’s health, I
think is poor as I ever knew
it. She is exceedingly feeble
and weak. She however is able
to sit up, but does nothing of
any importance.”
On August 26,
1836,
Sarah wrote: “Mother’s health
is very poor. The Physicians
say she has the asthmatic
consumption. She is very
feeble. Sister’s health is not
good, although I think it has
improved some. She is under the
care of a skillful physician.”
Joshua,
Jonathon, and
Widow Betsy
Pinkerton Aiken, well
established property owners in
upstate New York moved their
families to Illinois in 1833,
hoping to improve their
prospects and establish their
children on profitable farms and
businesses. Joshua was very
successful in doing this. The
West took its toll on the
family, however, and they did
not prosper as expected. Joshua
died suddenly, intestate, in
1840 at the age of 69. Jonathan
died in 1842. Betsy, her
daughters Mary and Sarah, and
son James all died of disease
before 1839. Sarah was 20 years
old and unmarried at the time of
her death. Mark, and Joshua’s
widow, Jane, and son, Henry
Aiken, lived long lives, but
Mark was the only one who
remained in Illinois.
For the comfort
and health of those in need
While the settlers’ extended
family and circle of friends
formed the settlers’ first line
of help and support, county
governments along the Galena
Trail frontier formed the second
line of support. Illinois was a
land of opportunity and bounty,
and people were expected to
support themselves, but when
individuals and families were
struck down by disease and other
disasters, they were not
expected to fend for themselves
or beg by the roadside.
Commissioners Court Records of
Peoria and Jo Daviess Counties
prior to 1843 record basic
cradle to grave assistance for
residents. Overseers of the
poor were appointed to identify
families and individuals in need
and to see that they were taken
care of. Payments for fuel,
housing, medical care, washing,
clothing and necessities,
funeral and burial expenses are
recorded. Entries include:
“October, 1834: pay Vois
$4.87 ½ for sundries furnished
for use of Mason’s family.”
“Pay George DePree $45 for
boarding and providing for Wm
Mason’s family 5 weeks and
funeral expenses for child.”
“Pay Michael Roberts $15 for
boarding and taking care of
Thomas Parry five weeks while
sick.”
1837:
Matthew Dean was boarded for
winter. 1838: coffin and
funeral for James Friend.
December 1838-January 1839: John
Radley was ill and the court
paid for his washing, medical
care, fuel, and finally his
funeral and burial expenses.
After Radley’s death, his son,
John, was bound out as an
apprentice.
Whenever possible, the
assistance was delivered to the
recipients at their homes, but
they were boarded, either
individually or in families,
with caregivers if they were
unable to live independently.
Jo Daviess
County Commissioners coped with
a different population and more
serious public health and
welfare issues than those faced
by Peoria Commissioners.
Galena was the booming center
of the lead mine region, and
attracted all types of
immigrants, including desperate
and adventurous single men and
women from all over the country,
people looking to be
millionaires in a day. Many were
what Rev. Arastus Kent, the
American Home Missionary
Society’s Presbyterian
missionary in the Lead Mine
Region, would call a
“promiscuous emigration,”
prone to risk-taking
occupations and pastimes which,
in combination with the brutal
winters, frequently endangered
their health and well being, as
well as their lives. Jo Daviess
County’s welfare needs and costs
were exorbitant.
According to
Kent, the spirit of worldliness
in Galena overpowered every good
influence. In a letter dated
February 26, 1831, Kent wrote
that “During the winter, the
snow has been unusually abundant
and the winter remarkably cold.
Several men have been frozen to
death, though they were
generally intemperate, and it is
at the peril of one’s life to
ride over these open prairies.”
After visiting Kent in 1836,
fellow AHMS missionary Rev.
Albert Hale, agreed with Kent,
saying that “the population
of the Territory is somewhat
peculiar. A far greater portion
of them are foreigners than of
the people of Illinois. They
are, as a body, more
intelligent. There is more open
wickedness such as intemperance
and gambling and infidelity, or
rather it is more bold and open,
and there is more money.”
The following year, Hale
elaborated by calling Galena
society a “crooked, perverse,
skeptical and scoffing
generation.”
Between 1834 and
1843, Peoria’s highest
welfare costs accrued in 1840,
when the County Commissioners
paid $671.68 in welfare
expenses. From March 1846 to
March 1847, by contrast, Jo
Daviess county paid $4,932.43 in
welfare expenses, and was in
debt $68,526.34.
In an effort to keep costs down,
Jo Daviess County bid out the
care of their poor to the lowest
bidder. On March 9, 1835, the
Jo Daviess County Commissioners’
Court ordered that “whenever
in the opinion of the overseer
of the poor any pauper ought to
be supported by the county, it
shall be their duty to let them
by public notice to the lowest
bidder.”
There is no record that
Peoria County auctioned off its
services for the poor during
this period.
In providing for
the care of the sick and
helpless in their communities,
the county commissioners
established the first
hospitals, foster care policies,
and attempted to set standards
of care that were humane for
residents and strangers in need
of assistance. In 1838, Jo
Daviess County Commissioners’
Court ordered that the “House
of Ishram Harden ordered to be
used as a place to send sick and
helpless individuals and shall
be allowed one dollar and fifty
cents per week for care of each
person, provisions and medicine
to be paid by county, this to be
further known as a hospital.”
In 1848, Jo Daviess County
levied a 6 mill property tax for
the purchase of property and the
construction of a poor house.
Peoria continued to board its
infirm and helpless paupers with
care givers. During the cholera
epidemic of 1849, however, the
County turned the three upper
rooms of the Court House into a
temporary hospital, and provided
nursing and medical care to
patients. Although “numerous
unqualified persons were
practicing medicine” in
Illinois at the time,
such doctors were not used by
the courts in Galena and Peoria.
Rather, the court records record
the names of well known and
reputable doctors who were paid
to provide standard medicine and
treatment to the poor at public
expense. In Jo Daviess County,
Dr. Horatio Newhall was the
overseer as well as physician to
the poor for many years.
Public safety
requires that all who have not
had the disease
be immediately
vaccinated
Galena, May 1829
When epidemics occurred, a
medical committee of respected
local doctors usually organized
public health measures to combat
the disease,
issuing public warnings, and
organizing the distribution and
sale of vaccines and medicines.
On May 8, 1829, passengers on
the steamboat Red Rover, brought
Smallpox to Galena. Quick
action on the part of the local
medical committee avoided an
epidemic. A notice signed by
doctors Crow, Muir, Newhall and
Philleo cautioned that smallpox
had been diagnosed and that
“on account of the large number
of our citizens who have visited
the boat, public safety requires
that all who have not had the
disease, or the Kine Pox should
be immediately
vaccinated.” Doctors Crow
and Philleo advertised that they
had “a supply of the genuine
vaccine matter, which they
warrant of the best quality.”
During the 1832 Cholera epidemic
in Galena, anti-cholera powders
were available at the Post
Office. The newspaper warned
that “It is important for
everyone in the country to keep
on hand a supply of the compound
powders, which may be justly
called anti-cholera powders,
which can be had at the Post
Office nicely prepared and put
up in doses, with directions how
to take them etc., in case of
attack.”
In times of epidemics, the
communities could quarantine the
sick, quarantine the community,
or block all but the most
essential traffic between
communities. There is no
evidence that these measures
were taken in the communities
along the Trail during the study
period, even in the case of the
Red Rover.
Good doctors
were difficult and often
impossible to find, and AHMS
missionary, Reverend A. L.
Penneyer, pointed out that
“doctors who were Quacks at the
East expect to have an extensive
practice” in the West.
Penneyer was particularly upset
with one local doctor whose
patients commonly died the day
after he had seen them and had
pronounced them “in a fair
way to recovery.”
When there were few physicians
that people could trust, they
turned to folk healers who acted
as both physician and nurse.
Mrs. Martha Warner of Eagle
Point, Ogle County, was a well
known home practitioner.
According to her obituary,
“Mother Warner, from careful
observation, and a very
tenacious memory, together with
a large experience, became quite
successful in the treatment of
diseases, especially those of
children, an therefore was
frequently called to attend the
sick. It is said it would be
difficult to find a family in
all the section of country where
she lived in which she has not
been in time of sickness, or an
adult in middle life that she
has not nursed in childhood.”
In order to
prevent the spread of disease,
unique pest control measures
were sometimes taken. For
example: Rats were a serious
problem in early Galena,
and in 1828, we find the
following curious
advertisement: “WANTED
IMMEDIATELY One or two hundred
BLACK CATS, to be delivered to
the subscriber in Galena, for
which a liberal price will be
given. They must be warranted
GOOD RAT CATCHERS Signed James
Miller”
The cats might have kept the
resident rat population at bay,
but in 1829 the town apparently
was invaded by river rats after
heavy October rains caused
flooding along the Mississippi
and Fever rivers. An infant was
attacked by these rats and
citizens were warned to feed
their rats, apparently lest the
rats find human victims.
The frontier presented new and
unexpected health hazards for
the settlers.
Although a great many of the
settlers came prepared with
their own home health care
manuals which could guide them
through the perils of pregnancy
and childbirth, common diseases
and injuries,
they had to rely on earlier
settlers and local newspapers
for warnings about their new
environment. Early settlers
gathered wild fruits,
mushrooms, and greens to
supplement their diet of corn
mush and wild game. Sometimes
the new plants resembled edible
mushrooms and vegetables found
back home, but actually were
very poisonous look-alikes. The
Poison Parsnip was deadly and
prevalent. On July 21, 1838,
the Lacon Harold reported
that “Mr. R.L. Smith’s whole
family, living within a mile of
Galena, were a few days since
poisoned with the water parsnip,
which had been boiled as greens
for dinner. Mr. Smith himself
died, and the rest of the family
suffered much from the active
poison. All settlers would
do well to be careful of
gathering wild herbs for greens;
none indeed should be used but
such as are perfectly well known
to be wholesome.”
Although they
had a somewhat vague idea of the
causes and prevention of the
deadly diseases that stalked
them, the settlers were given
plenty of advice about the do’s
and don’ts of healthy living in
this malarial swamp. Patent
medicines advertising cures for
fever and ague, worms,
consumption, and other common
disorders were advertised in
nearly every issue of the
newspapers. Medicines were sold
through the mail, in stores and
by peddlers. Perhaps more
interesting, in 1851, J.B.
Brooks of Dixon advertised “MUSQUITO
NETTING Linen and cotton
Musquito netting for sale.
Dated June 18.”
Mr. Brooks advertised and
sold the netting throughout the
year. There should have been a
good business in netting, which
would have been used to shield
sleepers from all types of
obnoxious, biting bugs. In
1843, Oliver told his readers
that “Among the novel
discomforts of the West, that of
insects is one of no trifling
character. The whole earth and
air seems teeming with them, and
mosquitoes, gallinippers, bugs,
ticks, sand-flies, sweat-flies,
house-flies, ants, cockroaches,
etc. join in one continued
attack upon one’s ease.”
When settlers or
strangers became hopelessly ill
along the Trail, they turned to
their families, their Tavern
hosts, or the community for
assistance. I found no record or
evidence of religious charities
or religious material
benevolence during this period.
Families and neighbors provided
nursing care and other
assistance for each other, much
as we do today. Strangers who
fell ill at the taverns were
cared for by their hosts, who,
in turn, sometimes received
reimbursement from the county.
The county governments supported
and cared for the paupers who
were alone in the world and
unable to care for themselves,
or for families who were
stranded and in dire need of
assistance. Churches and their
ministers were not a part of
this relief system, either to
provide material aide to
parishioners, or to the public
at large. The churches of this
period were small and
struggling, and their ministers
were dedicated to saving man’s
souls rather than alleviating
suffering here on earth.
The Christian Benevolent
Societies listed in the AHMS
missionaries’ quarterly reports
were Temperance Societies, Tract
Societies, Sunday schools, and
other means of moral improvement
and Christian education. Local
newspapers of the day did not
report charitable activity among
church denominations. The
overseers of the poor recorded
in Jo Daviess and Peoria
counties were interested
individuals or doctors.
They encountered
an emporium of malaria
and disappeared
beneath the prairie
In spite of
public health measures taken
along the early frontier,
medical practice remained
primitive, disease was rampant,
and visitors and settlers died
at an alarming rate. The
population was sustained and
increased by a very high
immigration rate which
counterbalanced and overrode the
mortality rate, rather than by
their very high birthrate.
Thousands of adults and children
simply disappeared beneath the
prairies.
The early
settlers usually buried their
dead in informal family plots
located near their cabins, often
at the edge of the grove or
woods. The dead were buried in
coffins that had been made for
them from local woods, usually
walnut or oak, and logs were
placed over the grave to protect
the bodies from disturbance. In
1843 William Oliver wrote that
“when death occurs, the
funeral takes place in not many
hours after, a circumstance
rendered necessary by the heat
of the climate. Any of the
neighbors may attend the funeral
if they think proper, but none
are invited, though it is
expected that those in the
immediate vicinity will come.
Unless the death is very sudden,
the news of it are speedily
conveyed through the
neighborhood by the women, who
evince great alacrity in
attending and sympathizing with
the sick, it matters not whether
strangers or friends.”
If possible, the
dead were buried in a place of
beauty, and nature was left to
take its course. Oliver
described one such family plot,
“I was one day wandering
through the woods in search of
deer, when, in a lonely spot,
overshadowed by some large oaks,
I stumbled on five graves.
There was no enclosure, nor
anything to indicate the
presence of a burial ground,
beyond the unequivocal shape of
the mounds, and a few split
rails arranged over each, to
prevent an attack of the
numerous bands of hogs, which
roam at large, or other wild
animals. A feeling of awe came
over me, such as I never
experienced even in the solemn
aisles and time-honored fanes of
England. There was a sense of
complete seclusion, a silence
befitting the last repose……I
afterwards learned that this was
the burying place of a family
that lived on the borders of the
prairie.”
Dad Joe Smith’s wife was
buried on their claim along the
Trail in a location and grave
answering these descriptions,
but more often, burial details
were not described in either the
early published death notices or
in the letters left by the early
settlers.
The funeral and
burial records of individuals
who died in the settlements are
more complete than are those of
the country people. Death
notices and obituaries of town
folk were published more
frequently than rural notices,
although even the town records
are inconsistent and sparse.
The published death notices
often stated the date and cause
of death and provided some
details about the funeral.
Families paid to have obituaries
published, and often requested
that the newspaper in their home
county publish them as well.
From the published notices and
obituaries, we learn that, as
stated above, burial was common
within 24 hours of death.
Friends and relatives gathered
at the home of the deceased and
accompanied the body to the
burying ground, where a
graveside ceremony was held.
Masonic burial rites were not
uncommon. The earliest Masonic
burial ceremony that I found was
held in Galena on November 29,
1826 for Thomas S. January, an
early smelter who had died after
a few days sickness.
Many, and
perhaps most, of the early
settlers were buried without the
benefit of clergy. The earliest
missionaries did not write about
attending funerals, just as they
did not write about distributing
material aid to the sick and
helpless. For many, this was a
simple matter of logistics. The
missionaries and preachers were
not close enough to many of the
families to provide the
services. It may be that the
early settlers did not want the
preachers to be present. What
family, for example, would want
to risk having an outspoken
preacher present at a funeral of
their cantankerous relative who
obstinately had refused to be
saved by the Christian lights of
the day?
By the early
1840’s, however, a custom of
religious burials had developed
along the northern Illinois
frontier, and ministers were
regularly presiding at funerals.
Rev. Jeremiah Porter wrote that
“the custom has obtained in
this country of having a sermon
preached at every funeral
occurring, notwithstanding it
exerts a great deal of labour.”
The
unpublished AHMS correspondence
reveals that the preachers and
missionaries were using funerals
to exert pressure on individuals
to publicly profess religion and
be saved according to
evangelistic rites. In the
fall of 1840, AHMS Missionary
J.J. Miter, described how he had
used the opportunity of the
death of a good wife and mother
(who had not publicly professed
herself to be a Christian) to
persuade her surviving family to
profess their religion.
Through the missionaries’ and
other preachers’ influence, it
became important for the
departed to be described
publicly as a professed
Christian, lest anyone think
otherwise. For this and other
reasons associated with greater
wealth, individual prosperity
and social status, funeral
sermons became increasingly
elaborate, and sometimes were
published. On March 31, 1838,
the Lacon Herald
published the following notice:
“We are indebted to a friend
in Canton of a sermon delivered
at the funeral of Mrs. C.
Moseley, in that place. It is
embraced in a pamphlet of twenty
eight pages. The deceased was a
lady distinguished for her piety
and intellectual attainments.
There is much in the development
of her history and moral worth
to interest and instruct. The
Sermon predicated in the test –
‘To die is gain’ is a
production of singular beauty.
For sale at Canton.”
“It was a quaint
looking grave yard, even for its
day”
Peoria, 1844
Individuals who
died in settled communities
could, if the family chose, be
buried in cemeteries. Cemeteries
were among the first community
projects in the early
settlements. In August of 1826,
a year before Jo Daviess became
a county, Galena’s burying
ground was being upgraded, with
the addition of a fence to
enclose the grounds and plans to
make a carriage road to the site
“from some point most
accessible.” The Galena
burying ground would have been
on federal land because land was
not privately held in the Lead
Mine Region at that time. The
road, fencing, and any other
improvements were built by
volunteer labor and/or paid for
with community donations. John
Connolly had collected $28.40
for the purpose.
After the Cholera epidemic and
the Black Hawk War of 1832, the
Galena burying grounds were
enlarged and improved, again by
subscription.
Peoria’s oldest American
cemetery was located on Main
Street across from the Court
House Square. It was known as
“an old burying ground” in 1844,
and it is the only early
cemetery along the Trail that
has been described in detail.
In 1896, sixty two year old
Johnson Cole gave the Peoria
Transcript a detailed
description of the burying
ground that had so fascinated
him as a boy. The reporter
wrote: “Across from the
present public library building,
on the spot now covered with a
drug store, was an old burial
ground. It was a quaint looking
grave yard, even for that day.
A high fence surrounded the
whole, and each burial plot was
enclosed by another close high
fence. The drooping
branches of the evergreen hung
over the silent mounds of earth
and sighed and whispered
drearily in the wind as if
mourning for the time so soon to
come when the advance of a
progressive people would demand
of the old burial round a site
for structures, solid and
substantial, in which to house
the commercial interests of a
great city……Few people who pass
this…..realize that beneath the
foundations of these buildings
rest the bones of many a hardy
pioneer who helped to lay the
foundation on which has grown up
a metropolitan community.”
Professional
undertaking and funeral services
gradually came to the Galena
Trail frontier in the late
1830’s. In 1837, cabinet and
furniture maker Joseph J. Thomas
advertised “Funerals attended
to when called upon.” This
was a discreet notice posted at
the bottom of his display
advertisement.
It was not until 1844, however,
that Thomas described himself as
an undertaker, when he
advertised himself as an
“undertaker, cabinet and chair
maker,” in Drown’s 1844 Peoria
City Directory.
Undertaking
services, however, were not
being widely advertised along
the Trail prior to 1850. It
is possible that the women
described by Oliver in 1843
traditionally not only soothed
the bereaved, but also prepared
the deceased for burial, much as
the burial societies did in
larger urban areas. The function
might also have been performed
by the cabinet makers who built
the coffins. In the case of
paupers, the County
Commissioners Courts often paid
for the coffin and burial
expenses together. These public
services were being provided by
William E. Mason, grocer and
innkeeper, Daniel Brestel,
Methodist Minister, Joseph
Thomas, cabinet maker and
undertaker, and others who
cannot be further identified
beyond their names.
Peoria’s earliest pioneer
cemeteries have disappeared. The
old burying ground described by
Cole, apparently predated early
development, since its presence
is not recorded in the land
records. When the property owner
eventually decided to build on
the site, the cemetery was
dismantled. Other cemeteries,
including the Old City Cemetery
(developed in 1842), the Moffatt
Cemetery, and the Masonic
Cemetery, were closed, and the
remains were reportedly moved to
Springdale Cemetery, a cemetery
founded in 1854. Still, human
bones and old tombstones have
been uncovered in unexpected
places in the city of Peoria
since 1869, when the bodies of
three American soldiers were
uncovered in a shallow grave
near Adams and Liberty Streets.
Several of these isolated graves
were not on the site of any
known cemetery, leading
observers to the conclusion that
people continued to bury their
loved ones on private land,
sometimes marking the site with
a headboard, and sometimes
setting a conventional
tombstone.
There are
several very early cemeteries
along the Trail. All of them
are public burying grounds.
They include: LaSalle Prairie
and Root Cemeteries in Peoria
County, Sugar Grove and Mead
Cemeteries in Marshall, Oak Hill
in Providence and Oakland in
Princeton, Bureau County, Grand
Detour, Buffalo Grove, Reed, and
Old Chamber’s Grove cemeteries
in Ogle County. These cemeteries
originated in the 1830’s, and
most are still in use. The
earliest grave markers probably
were wood headboards that were
provided by the coffin makers
and sometimes called
gravedigger’s markers.
They were often painted white,
with inscriptions written in
black. One wooden headboard is
still in use in the Buffalo
Grove cemetery near Polo, in
Ogle County. It was installed
in the late nineteenth century
and has been maintained since
that time. The rectangular
headboard with a simple curved
top measures 54” x 14” (four and
a half feet by one foot two
inches). The name of the
deceased, date of birth and
death were carved into the board
and then over painted with white
paint which has faded greatly
with time. The board has been
restored several times since its
initial installation. Other
headboards that might have been
in these cemeteries have long
since disappeared and the graves
left unmarked.
There are very
few tombstones that predate the
1850’s. Tombstones were not
locally available until after
1850, when marble cutters
arrived in Peoria, Princeton,
and Galena.
Before 1850, if a family wanted
a tombstone, they had to either
bring it out west when they
immigrated, or order one from
St. Louis or Cincinnati. The
names may have been inscribed
either locally or at the place
of origin. I have located 23
tombstones in cemeteries in the
Galena Trail Corridor that
predate 1850. They are most
commonly made of limestone, but
one is of fine, gray slate.
Many of the stones are simple,
but very large rectangular slabs
measuring approximately 5’ tall
and 2’ wide, and resemble the
wooden headboard at Buffalo
Grove. Five of the stones have
an arched and shouldered top
profile reminiscent of New
England grave stones. These 23
early tombstones rarely have
motifs. Two of the stones
display a willow motif, and one
has a simple palm leaf. There
are no crosses, fingers pointing
to heaven, or bereaved husbands
or wives weeping over the tombs
of their spouses or children.
The most common adornment is
seen in the design of the
lettering, with the name of the
deceased carved in either in a
straight line or an arc, with
some geometric decoration.
There are no personal epitaphs.
When an elaborate tombstone is
seen on an old grave, it usually
was placed after 1850 in memory
of a loved one. It is possible
that the first marble cutters
did a brisk business replacing
wood headboards with marble
tombstones.
Population in
Illinois and along the Trail
doubled between 1830 and 1840,
and nearly doubled once more
between 1840 and 1850,
while the area continued to
maintain a high death rate.
Given these population figures,
one would expect to find more
very old tombstones along the
Trail. Even accounting for the
fact that many people continued
to be buried on their farms and
in their gardens, and that old
tombstones break or fall and
disappear beneath the grass, I
must conclude that the majority
of the frontier graves had
either been unmarked as
described by William Oliver in
1843, or were marked with wood
headboards which later
deteriorated and were not
replaced with stone monuments.
Our study ends
with the closing of the Galena
Trail Frontier in the 1850’s,
following the completion of the
Illinois and Michigan canal and
the expansion of the railroads
throughout the state. Illinois’
rich agricultural productivity
supported and drove rapid
improvements in transportation
and industry, and the population
rose by nearly a million people,
from 851,470 in 1850 to
1,711,951 in 1860. The
farmlands filled up, and the
towns along the Trail became
manufacturing as well as
distribution centers. Coal
resources in Peoria and Bureau
counties were expanded to feed
the railroads and industry, as
well as to heat the homes of the
rapidly expanding population.
There continued to
be a high incidence of sickness
and early death in the 1850’s,
but improvements in sanitation
and a better understanding of
the disease process led to an
improvement in the overall
quality of life. As the
population expanded, prosperous
churches were organized and
buildings constructed,
ecclesiastical burying grounds
were established, and the towns
and rural communities developed
the features of a modern society
that persisted along the Trail
for 100 years.
Today, travelers
see yet another era of
settlement and development along
the Galena Trail. After fifty
years of increasing
mechanization and consolidation
of farming, the rural
population, though still very
prosperous, has declined in
numbers, and schools, churches,
and communities established in
the 1850’s are disappearing.
Population centers are anchored
exactly where they were in 1838
– in Peoria, Dixon, and Galena.
Bibliography
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1855-1930+
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wooden headboard, Buffalo Grove
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Photographs, Patricia Goitein
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