From: Transactions of the McLean County Historical Society
By McLean County Historical Society (McLean County, Ill.), Ezra Morton
Prince
Published by Published for the McLean County Historical Society by
Pantagraph Printing and Stationery Co., 1899
page 404-409
He was born in Holland, 1780, and came with his parents while quite
young to America, and settled in Maryland. About the year 1800 was
married to a young and educated widow lady, a Mrs. Mary Starr, of
Maryland; he moved from Maryland to Pennsylvania, and from thence to
Ohio. He was a soldier in the war of 1812, and acquitted himself with
credit. And right here I wish to correct an error I find in "The Good
Old Times of McLean County." It states that Reverend Rhodes
and family, and son, John H. S. Rhodes and family, came to Sangamon
county, Illinois, October, 1823, and thence to McLean county in 1824.
This is a mistake, as verified by his children and many
others, also according to the record in the old family bible owned by
J. H. S. Rhodes, Rev. Ebenezer Rhodes and family and son John and
family came to Sangamon county, Illinois, 1822, and thence to McLean
county, April, 1823, when they settled in Blooming Grove.
In submitting to you this paper, I wish to say I think it will be more
of an eulogy than a history of Reverend Rhodes, for he died as early as
1842, making his sojourn in this county embrace twenty 1 years
of the earliest pioneer history of McLean county. Most all of the
people of that day with whom he was acquainted have, too, been laid
away in the silent city of the dead, so that almost all means of
procuring accurate information of deeds performed, to any great extent,
is forever gone.
Arriving in Blooming Grove, April, 1823, he commenced to build himself
a home. All around him was wild, undomesticated, unimproved,
uncultivated, uncivilized. He was financially poor,with naught but
muscle, brain, character, and will; these set down in so propitious a
locality as Blooming Grove, all obstacles in the way of progress had to
soon succumb. The log cabin was built with its great fireplace which
took in a backlog four feet long, the puncheon floor was laid, which
was soon worn smooth by the constant treading of the many busy feet, by
the broom and scrub broom, for I am told that the great grandmother was
cleanly and neat beyond criticism.
Breaking of sod and plowing was soon done, seeds were
sown, land
cultivated, and as he had now done his part, nature soon yielded an
abundant harvest, which proved the wisdom of locating in so productive
and sightly a locality. As soon as the rude cabin was built and the
tenants ensconced therein, the family altar was set up for he had not
forgotten the God of his fathers. Queen Victoria when once asked the
secret of her successful reign, laid her hand upon the bible and said,
"A firm belief in and close adherence to its precepts have guided all
my actions."
So with the Reverend Rhodes, he came to this country with the law of
God written in his heart, he carried it in his hand, he proclaimed it
with his mouth, remembering that "righteousness exalteth a nation while
sin is a reproach to any people."
When the labors of the day were completed and they sought their couch
for rest, the vesper concert to lull them to sleep was the hooting of
owls, the howling of wolves, the screaming of panthers, or perchance,
the war cry of the savage red man; yet they were happy in their little
log cabins and sang of God's goodness and mercy to men, for a soul
filled with the love of God can sing as no one else can sing.
"Not as the conqueror comes they, the true hearted, came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drum, and the trumpet that sings of
fame:
Not as the flying came, in silence and in fear;
They shook the depths of the desert's gloom with their hymns of holy
cheer."
As soon as three or four families could be gathered together they met
in private houses for worship, and often Mr. John Hendrix and Reverend
Rhodes would read, sing, and pray together, the former a Methodist, the
latter a Baptist.
While not engaged in his out-door pursuits, of evenings and rainy days,
he was engaged in his old cherished avocation, that of cabinet maker.
He made his own cupboards, bedsteads, tables, chairs, etc., soon the
cabin was comfortably and handsomely furnished with his own handicraft:
he also made the reels and wheels on which the women spun their flax,
cotton, and wool.
A great many people pride themselves upon their ancestry, and they
glory over the blood that pours through their arteries. In their line
there is a senator or a president,or perchance a king, or a queen, but
I come to you with no boasted earthly lineage, but of one who was the
meek and humble follower of the meek and lowly Savior, of one who had
entered the kingdom of God, and thereby had become a Child of the Ruler
of All Nations, "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed
upon us that we should be called the children of God."
All his human endowments were consecrated to religious and moral ends:
he was brave and fearless, possessing a great amount of stern
inflexibility of character ready to meet all emergencies; he was wholly
unostentatious, this was readily observed in the plain yet neat manner
in which he garbed his person; he was meek and humble, never parading
his virtues; he was often solicited to hold offices of trust and honor,
but always unhesitatingly declined. Had he known his noble deeds would
have been brought before the public as I speak of them today he would
have chided rather than have been pleased. ''How beautiful are the feet
of them who preach the Gospel of Peace and bring glad tidings of good
things."
In 1819 or 1820, Rev. Ebenezer Rhodes was ordained a preacher of the
gospel of Separate Baptist denomination. But by careful and prayerful
research of the Word of God he became convinced in his own mind that
all creeds and articles of faith were superfluous, that they kept many
from acknowledging their Savior who already believed
the Bible, but who could never subscribe to the doctrines of the
creeds. Therefore (according' to a manuscript I had in my possession)
as early as 1824, Reverend Rhodes made a statement of his resolution on
paper, in his own handwriting, which reads as follows:
' 'The Church of Christ at Blooming Grove agrees to take the direction
God has given us for our rule of faith and practice. September 27,
1824."
Hence the organization of the first Christian church ever organized in
this county. I have frequently been told there were seven
charter members, and names were added from time to time as they
expressed desire for membership, until I think there were forty
or fifty names added to the list. Reverend Rhodes
preached to the people of this and adjoining counties for many years,
or until 1841. when his health retarded his work in this line, for all
these services he never received one cent, and never thought of
receiving one cent. He preached in Hittle's Grove, Cheney's Grove,
Sugar Grove, Long Point, Big Grove, Twin Grove, Dry Grove, head of
Mackinaw, and various other places too numerous to mention.
Reverend Rhodes performed the first ceremony which united in wedlock
the first white couple ever married in McLean county, October, 1824,
Mr. Thomas Orendorff to Miss Mary Malinda Walker.
There is now and has been for twenty-four years a neat and comfort able
house of worship and a prosperous organization within one-half mile of
the place where the first organization was consummated, and in this
county at the present time there are twenty-seven Christian
churches—one at Anchor, Arrowsmith, Carlock, Chenoa, Colfax. Ellsworth,
Money Creek, Normal, Normal (colored), Belleflower, Blooming Grove,
Bloomington, Bloomington Mission, Blue Mound, Buck Creek, Oneida,
Saybrook, Shirley, Gridley, Heyworth, Holder, Leroy, Lexington,
Lytleville, Twin Grove, Weston, Stanford. And if I may be allowed one
step farther will say, according to the statistics from the New York
Independent Symposium, January 30, 1895, the Disciples of Christ
(Christians) increased in the United States since 1890, 229,960, or
thirty-five percent. The Church of Christ now numbers about one million
members, are increasing more rapidly than any other religious body in
the United States, is dedicating three houses of worship every two
days. It has over six thousand ministers, forty colleges and
universities, five hundred general state and county missionaries, and
has missionaries in India, China, Japan, Turkey, and other lands of the
Old World.
But to return: the settlers were obliged to go long distances to mill,
and took large loads. They went first to Attica on the Wabash river, a
distance of 120 miles. Afterward they went to Green's mill, on Fox
river, near where Ottawa now stands, about eighty miles distant-
Reverend Rhodes had considerable of the spirit of public enterprise.
The year 1824 was marked with some improvement. He and his son, John H.
S., built a grist mill, the grinders being made of niggerheads, from
the prairie.
In 1832 he and his son, Samuel, built a saw mill on the land now known
as the Catholic cemetery, west of Bloomington, on Sugar Creek, which
they ran by water for two years. They made the mill, dug the race, and
ran it together. But young Aaron Rhodes was drowned there while
swimming in the pond, and this sad event so disheartened the old
gentleman that he tore down his mill shortly afterward and sold his saw
and the iron works with it.
In 1840 he met with an accident which (anally resulted in his death. He
was in the timber cutting down a tree. It fell on him, breaking his
thigh and mashing the knee of the other leg. After this he always went
on crutches and died two years later. Although Reverend Rhodes was
philanthropic and generous for those early days of hardships, yet his
mantle of charity was to fall upon him who should live after him, John
H.S. Rhodes. I beg for this brief digression, as it will be my
only opportunity' of showing how the eldest son had imbibed
the spirit of benevolence and charity which the father so largely
possessed. John H. S. Rhodes was so unassuming, so unaffected, so
unostentatious, so meek, so humble, so natural, always the same, yet
some people who did not well know him may have thought him close and
penurious, but I think no one was ever turned from his door empty
banded; the poor were sought after and provisions made for their
comfort, and from personal knowledge I can say, at the time of his
death as I assisted in inventorying all his papers, he gave thousands
of dollars in charity, and donations to public institutions, as Bloom-
ington Wesleyan University, Eureka Theological College, etc. And there
were 810,000, in notes that had become outlawed; his sons had often
urged him to collect some of those notes; he replied, "No, the people
are poor and need it more than I. I suppose when they get the money to
spare they will pay me." He lived out the principle that "It is more
blessed to give than to receive."
Come now all you people of this county, all prowess, all literature,
all civilization, all religion, and help pay a tribute of honor to the
first pioneer preacher of McLean county, Rev. Ebenezer Rhodes.
Reverend Rhodes,believing the success of a republican
government depends mainly upon the education of the people, that unless
the citizens are intelligent a free government is always in danger, and
that it is the character of the citizens that makes states and unmakes
them, and as character is mainly formed by education, he believed it to
be of first importance that all should be well educated, not alone an
education of the head but of the heart also. Therefore with this
principle so strongly rooted in his convictions, he donated freely to
houses of worship, and houses of learning; yet notwithstanding the
numerous means and instrumentalities for eradicating ignorance,
ungodliness, vice, and immorality, yet when his earthly labors ceased
there were many who sat under the' sound of his voice still
living without Christ, or hope in the life to come.
The principal cause of this state of things was attributed largely to
the habit of intoxicating drinks, which has always prevented
the progress of truth, and religion, in proportion to the
extent of its use. As to the extent of its present use, we have but to
open a newspaper and read of its terrible crimes, in every column, yet
in the face of Christendom, it is nourished, it is cherished, it is
licensed, it is made legal. How long, oh Lord, how long. A learned
physician once said the Devil first binds with a hair, then with a
chain, and we read further;
"We are not worse all at once,
The course of evil begins so slowly,
And from each slight source, an infant hand
Might stop the breech with clay,
But let the stream grow wider, and philosophy
Aye and religion, too, may strive in vain
To stem the headlong current."
For the abolition of strong drink Reverend Rhodes was indefatigable in
his denunciations, not only of strong drink, but also of the use of
tobacco, and every other practice that defiled the man, that was
demoralizing,that hindered the progress of Christianity. I have every
reason to believe that his great and godly efforts to annihilate these
sinful practices, were so diffused and so permeated the minds and
hearts of a greater portion of the people of that day, that these
principles have been handed down to after generations and by Divine
guidance those coming after have taken it up, and are still battling
for God and humanity. May God speed the day when their work may prove
effective and their prayers answered.
In all his disseminating gospel truths he was a staunch and unswerving
advocate of the abolition of the slave trade. He believed slavery to be
an abomination in the sight of God. So strong were his convictions in
this direction that a good old brother, who had been a slaveholder,
presented himself for membership in the church, but Reverend Rhodes
supposing he still advocated slavery refused him admission. Thus early,
in this and adjoining counties in the midst of hardships and suffering,
obstacles and oppositions, which would astonish as much as they would
instruct us, he did much in turning the current of feeling, and
awakening a sense of justice in this portion of the state, at least,
which though ever so meager was to aid in finally bringing about the
abolition of slavery. But he soon realized that his days were numbered,
that his earthly pilgrimage was fast drawing to a close. In the year
1842 he slept that sleep that knows no awakening, till the great
trumpet shall sound, calling the dead to arise and come to judgment.
The bed on which the dying man of God lay was surrounded by a large,
loving, and affectionate family of wife and children, and many friends.
His last admonitions were, "Live pure, Christian lives and meet me in
Heaven with all the redeemed." As we have already learned, while living
he sought not alone to amass worldly possessions, although at the time
of his death he owned several hundred acres of land and several
thousand dollars in money, yet his spiritual progress always kept pace
with his material prosperity. His mind reached out after the infinite,
is was not satisfied with the things of time and sense. It sought
perfection, infinity, eternity.
Death removed the tenement of clay, but his good works with all their
hallowed influences will live on forever, and how the scene brightens
even more when revelation-is appealed to. As the ark of the testimony
is opened a voice is heard to say, "I am the resurrection and the life;
he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."
