Old Iron Bridge over Little Wabash River

My grandmother and her sisters were raised on a farm close to the Little Wabash River in southeastern Illinois. Leech Township of Wayne County, to be exact.

Her father, known in the family as "Grandpa Fisher", owned land on both sides of the river. How convenient is must to have been to have the only bridge over the river in that part of the state near his properties. In fact the road in front of the homestead seems to be the main road between Albion in Edwards County and Fairfield, the county seat of Wayne County back in the day. A better highway was eventually built north of the railroad that ran through the area.

The bridge was washed out (probably not the first time) years ago, but was there when Wilma, Jerry, Jim and Don Dixon visited Grandpa Fisher and stayed on the farm. You can still see the iron support beams today, but that's all that is left.

I sent Uncle Don an email including an old picture of the bridge in better times. He reminded me about some features of the bridge and the wonders of eating pecans that grew on his Grandpa Fisher's land across the river.

Here's the text that was included with the picture:

Old Iron Bridge or Scotts bridge was built on sec 21 T2S R9E finished in 1865 at a cost of $4,000

Noticeable among the many substantial improvements made in Leech Township is that of the building of the iron bridge across the Little Wabash, on Section 21, Township 2 south, Range 9 east. Previous to the erection of this structure, great difficulty was ofttimes experienced in crossing the river, the course of which divides the township into two divisions, and the settlements on either side were quite distinct from each other. The bridge was built by contract for the county in 1865, at a total expense of about $4,000 and 12,000 acres of swamp land.

Can you believe that they built a bridge while the Civil War was just wrapping up? I guess what they say about the economic power of the north compared to the south must have been true. I know that steel was a very important commodity during the war, as a lot of armaments and railroad repair had to be done.

HI Lee, Enjoyed the picture. When we were kids and visited Grandpa, we would go to the river and cross this bridge. The bridge looked about the same in the early 40's and the boards had holes in them so you had to careful where you walked and or drove across it. Grandpa had about 60 pecan trees near the bridge and the nuts were great. Thanks, Uncle Don

Fisher Land in about 1924

The date on this plat map is uncertain, but the person who found it explains why he thinks it is around 1924.

John Fredrick Fisher had five sons, on of whom was John Rudolph Fisher, known in our family as Grandpa Fisher because he was Wilma, Jerry, Jim and Don's grandpa. J. R. "Rude" Fisher was my grandmother Della Fisher Dixon's father.

In 1924, the landholdings of J. F. Fisher have been broken up and distributed to his surviving sons. You might want to review this old post showing his children. One son, Ralph, did not survive to adulthood.

I can see land in the 1924 map belonging to J. R. Fisher, including a new property on the west side of the Little Wabash River. My dad's cousins pointed out that he owned land on both sides of the river when they grew up and that they loved to go berry picking on the west side of the river. They also tell a cool story about Grandpa Fisher encountering a small group of armed gangsters on his land one day, who reportedly just said..." Mr. Fisher, you just go on back to the house now, we'll be gone in a little while." There was a large (for the time) bridge across the river just west of the house where my grandmother grew up. There is also property on the map listed for H. E. Fisher and W. F. Fisher, two of Grandpa Fisher's brothers. I see a small plot labelled N. Fisher, but nothing to match the other surviving brother.

In one of J. R. Fisher's properties, there appears to be a small section that is labelled J. F. Fisher, which might be a small property that his father retained during his retirement. It appears that the Fisher brothers were enterprising young men and apparently successful in farming during this time just before the great depression. It would be interesting to see a later plat map to see whether the properties contracted or not. Each had several children, and not all of them were boys, so the names might change even if the land stayed in the family.

Use the same basic procedure to find the plat map at IlGenWeb as in the last posting. Choose the 1924 map and then choose the next to last listing in the chart to get the map.

Fisher Land in 1881

I've been looking at the history of Wayne County, Illinois lately. I've read so much about Edwards County, the home of Albion and Dixon Precinct, where the Dixon clan lived from the time of their arrival in America. But my grandmother's family, the Fisher's, are from just across the county border in Leech Township, of Wayne County. A site called IlGenWeb has a good deal of history about Wayne County. One thing is a very detailed history put together in 1954 as a PhD. dissertation by a local resident. There is a lot of good detail, but nothing specifically about the Fisher family.

When I drove over to the Fisher homestead, near the Little Wabash River, dad's cousins pointed out the old bridge and the site of the old Chandler schoolhouse, where my grandmother and her sisters went to school. We drove through the little town of Golden Gate, which is north of the Fisher farm. It turns out there used to be a little town called Scottsville just east of the farm where my grandmother was raised.

One of the things on the site is a section containing a couple of plat maps showing the extent and location of Fisher landholdings.

The 1881 plat shows that J. F. Fisher, who was my grandmother's grandfather ("Grandpa Fisher's father) owned quite a bit of land. I'm not sure anyone in the Anderson branch of the family ever owned that much land. Of course, most of us weren't farmers. I know that Uncle Warren and Aunt Wilma Thacker own land near Spencer, Indiana, but I'm not sure how much land is included in their farm. I guess we're mostly "towners" now. I'd love to know if any of the more recent generations have gone back to farming or owning larger parcels of land. My best read of the map shows that J. F. Fisher owned 320 acres in total with the largest piece being 120 acres. These pieces were pretty close together. The site of the house where Rude Fisher and his wives raised my grandmother was not the same site as the residence of J. F. Fisher, which is marked on the 1881 map. This makes sense, as J. F. Fisher lived until after Della was married, and her father and grandfather would have had separate residences most of her life.

Now I have another thing to do when I return to Albion.... try to see if the older house is still standing or there is any sign of it left! I also want to get my hands on an old plat map from the old days in Dixon Precinct of Edwards County!

By the way, you can clearly see the Chandler property on the map, just north and east of the Fisher properties. The schoolhouse was located on the southeast corner of that propery. It burned down a few years ago.

Here's how to see the 1881 plot map:

Go to this site: http://wayne.ilgenweb.net/

Choose Platts (2)

Choose the 1881 map.

Then choose Leech (2). This is just the area below the fold in a large plat map and is roughly the southern half of Leech Township as of 1881.

The Little Wabash

On the banks of the Wabash, far away....

Illinois has it's own Wabash River, only it's the Little Wabash River.

The river ran alongside Grandpa Fisher's farm, where my grandmother Della and her sisters grew up outside of Golden Gate in Wayne County.

The river wasn't far at all from Dixon Precinct either.

Grayville is on the river. In fact, the old railroad tracks and station are about 30 yards from the river.

When I toured Dixon Precinct and Grayville with Lois Goodson, we stopped in the parking lot where boats are launched. The river was still at flood stage from the spring '08 floods. It was a beautiful scene. However, I'm sure the frequent floods caused a lot of distress back then as they still do now.

Like Florida hurricanes, nature is most beautiful when it is also most terrifying.

The Little Wabash joins the Wabash River near the state line, just before the Wabash joins the Ohio River.

These pictures were taken from the car in the parking lot mentioned above. The area is in downtown Grayville, in the White County portion of town. The "lake" is not supposed to be there.

Here is a link to a Wikipedia article about the Little Wabash River.

The Little Wabash Bottomlands

The area around Golden Gate and the Fisher homestead consists of river bottomland where the Little Wabash has changed it's course and has flooded over the ages. These bottomlands run roughly parallel to the river as best I could tell.

Gravel roads cross the bottoms, and it is usually a half mile or so from ridge to ridge. However, the bottomland run for miles in the east-west direction... as far as the eye can see.

These bottomlands are farmed, but flooding is to be expected. It's so expected that no attempt has been made to pave any of the roads in the area, as asphalt would just be washed out whenever these bottoms fill with floodwaters and the water starts a sheet flow alongside the river.

I was almost expecting a Mississippi bluesman to appear in the middle of one of these crossings.

I was impressed how mom's Saturn wagon handled the gravel roads. It cleaned right up after the trip. The roads were dry, but you could still see water standing where the recent flooding had occcured. That's the same basic flooding we all heard about in the southwest Indiana environs.

The second picture shows the site of the old schoolhouse (Chandler School) where the Fisher girls (and their aunt Hattie) went to school. The school has been recently torn down, but the farmer (or the school district) has generously left a triangular patch of grass where the school once stood.

Although the Fisher homestead is well into Wayne County to the west of Edwards County, the area has always been included in the school district made up of mostly Albion and Edwards County communities and schools. The river's natural boundary, although not determining the border of the two counties, still helped to shape the school district service areas.

Bethel Church

Bethel Church, located just south of Ellery, and east of Golden Gate, is the location of the grave sites of Fisher ancestors.

This picture shows the approach from a seldom used gravel road heading east toward the church.

This is a modern church, constructed to replace the old church that was destroyed by a tornado in the late 1970's!

Grandpa Fisher's Farm

The farmhouse, and the farm, where my grandmother Della grew up is still there and in use today. Her nieces took me on a tour of the area during my visit to Albion.

The house has been expanded since the old days when Della grew up in the house. Essentially, the front part of the house, to the right of the TV antenna in the photo, was the original house that Della grew up in.

The old barn is also still there. Plus several newer outbuildings that are part of the active farm operation today. I didn't stop and try to get to know the current owners and don't know if there have been one or several owners since the Fisher family sold the farm.

The farm is south of Golden Gate, a small community built around an old railroad depot. I'll post separately about Golden Gate. The old road from Golden Gate to the Fisher farm is no longer in use, and the new way to get there is to drive over a few miles of gravel road. Not shell roads like in Florida. I'm talking large diameter gravel. The roads are not paved because they traverse the bottomlands (floodplain) of the Little Wabash River. The house is just east of the river and Grandpa Fisher owned lands on both sides of the river. The nieces talked about crossing the old wooden bridge to the west side of the river to collect pecans. The columns of the old bridge are still there, although they are mostly hidden by vegetation. The wooden plank structure collapsed a few years ago. The river is only about a mile from the house and there is a dirt/gravel road that runs along the riverside.