1825
At the beginning of 1825 there were no white settlers in Washington Township. The west side of the township was mainly deep forest which morphed into rolling prairie eastward. The only known residents were Potawatomi Indians who were the current tribe dominating the area, a power that had changed hands several times throughout history.
In late 1824 William Holland had a dispute with the Potawatomi through his occupation as their blacksmith, and they had made an attack on his home near Peoria. As a result of this dispute, Holland was relieved of his duty as blacksmith at the end of 1824. On January 7, 1825, Holland was authorized to employ someone to lay out of the city of Peoria and on March 8, 1825, was named a Peoria County Commissioner.
Some time that spring, William Holland became the first white man to settle in what is now Washington Township. As mentioned, the Washington area in 1825 was the edge of the prairie. It is difficult to find descriptions of the area at that time, but here are some words which may help paint a picture.
Eliza Farnham in her book "Life in the Prairie Land" describes her first look at a wild prairie in Tazewell County:
We crossed a little stream at some distance from the town, and our road thence onward, for more than a mile, wound among beautiful heights, thinly wooded and covered with the clean brown grass. As we mounted one of these the country opened before us, and swept away to the eastern horizon, a distance of many miles - a smooth, open plain, undotted by a tree or other familiar object. I can never forget the thrill which this first unbounded view on a prairie gave me. I afterwards saw many more magnificent - many richer in all elements of beauty, many so extensive that this appeared a mere meadow beside them, but no other had the charm of this. I have looked upon it a thousand times since, and wished in my selfishness that it might remain unchanged; that neither buildings, fences, trees, nor living things should change its features while I live, that I might carry this first portrait of it unchanged to my grave. I see it now, its soft outline swelling against the clear eastern sky, its heaving surface pencilled with black and brown lines, its borders fringed with the naked trees!
No better proof of the reality of this prairie could have been given than the silence which it inspired in myself and my companion. We had burst into exclamations of delight a dozen times before, when the little glades opened around us, but now there was not a word uttered. Both were lost in contemplation of the sublime spectacle which lay before us. We had no inquiries to make. Nature spoke to us in her own unequivocal language.
George Flower, who settled in Edwards County, said this:
In the month of April, the surface of the prairie becomes covered with a delicious green. It resembles, when viewed at a little distance, a smooth carpet or well-shorn lawn. About the first of May the surrounding woods appear clothed in a verdure of a darker hue. As the season advances, the verdure increases in intensity, intermingled with flowers of brilliant hues, from the smallest to the largest....It is a fairy-like scene on which the eye delights to dwell, a perfect picture of rural felicity and peace. As summer advances, both herbage and foliage attain to greater amplitude, and richness of color. The great heat of the summer's sun, from which all animals seek a shelter, seems to make perfect every variety of vegetable life. Autumn finds the tall grass of the prairie in full size, but of a less brilliant green. Later in autumn, the trees, as if to defy the god of day, exchange their sober livery of green for robes of greater brilliancy and more gorgeous beauty. Standing side by side are trees of various but perfect colors. The pale-yellow contrasts with the violet or the copper-color. Whole clumps, of bright scarlet or rich crimson, intermingle often on the same tree with bunches of yellow or carnation. In spring and autumn, the temperature for many days together is delicious — about 75° Fahrenheit. Sitting at ease, enjoying the beauties of the scene, fanned by the soft zephyrs that come rolling up from the south, laden with the perfume of sweet flowers; the lungs inhaling the delicious balm, redolent of health; every sense is gratified and simple existence is a joy. As winter approaches, the grass becomes dry and brown.
Harvey Lee Ross described how the Central Illinois landscape was ideal for the Native American:
It was a perfect paradise for them. They could find about everything that their hearts could desire, and it was about as good a place for the poor white man as it was for the Indian. The deer roamed through the country by the thousands. It is not an exaggeration to say that I have seen 500 deer in the woods and prairies in a single day. Every other kind of game and fowl was abundant, and the rivers and small streams were full of fish. The bee trees were so numerous that white settlers and Indians could got all the honey they wanted, and there were groves of sugar trees all over the country from which an abundance of maple sugar was made. The wild fruit was equally wonderful, there being no limit to the plums, crabapples, grapes, black and redhaws, gooseberries, blackberries, dewberries and strawberries. Acres upon acres of wild onions could be found in the woods, and wild potatoes in great abundance.
Thomas Forsyth gave this foreboding account of the Peoria area in 1824 in a letter to William Clark (of Lewis & Clark):
The country in the vicinity of Peoria is generally of prairie and along the water courses only is to be found good timber, but if the inhabitants living near the Illinois River continue to cut and raft down timber to this place as they have done (and continue now to do daily) in a very few years a good log of timber will not be found near any water course where timber can be floated away. Several large rafts are now on their way down the Illinois to this marker and more preparing. A very handsome bottom land opposite Peoria and which was full of good timber five years ago is now totally ruined.
Perhaps this helps explain why William Holland left the area around the Illinois River in 1825 with his wife and ten children and sought out an area less intruded upon by the larger settlement near Peoria. if one looks at a topographical map (below), one might surmise that Holland went exploring up Farm Creek in the spring of 1825 and settled at the head of it.
Holland's first cabin was near a spring at Farm Creek in the current area of Candlewood Park.
From the 1879 "History of Tazewell County:"
In the spring of 1825, he came to this township, and built a log house on section 23...Here the family were surrounded by a dense wilderness, and were the only white occupants of this township until 1826...His nearest neighbors were located on Farm creek, three miles east of Peoria, where the first settlement was made in this section.
From an article in the 1869 Chicago Daily Inter Ocean, as part of a description a party traveling north in 1825:
...At that time there was no settlement between the Mackinaw and Chicago, except on a stream called the Nine-Mile Creek, between the Mackinaw and Vermillion where was living William Holland, who had been the Indian blacksmith at Fort Clark...
Regarding Holland's nearest neighbor, from the "Early History of Washington, Illinois:"
At the time of his location here, Holland's nearest neighbor was Thomas Camlin who lived on Farm Creek, some three miles east of Peoria. Camlin was a pleasant gentleman and a good neighbor, always ready to entertain his guests with spicy stories and thrilling incidents of his personal adventures with the Indians, whom he used to shoot at a distance of one-half to three-quarters of a mile, and Holland whiled away many a pleasant evening in his society.