Knox in the News

From the Register-Mail:

During 1937 Dr. H.R. Muelder of Knox College’s history department presented a series of lectures at Central Congregational Church about the community’s early pioneers. Muelder was later to serve as acting president of the college.

Muelder painted a vivid picture of the pioneers. He pointed out that they had problems and sought the best ways to solve them. They were forced to exchange hardships for anticipated rewards.

The wives had the most to lose and the least to gain in the pioneer adventure. They more often than not had to give up their original customs for a life of hardship. Muelder pointed out that it was common in most pioneer cemeteries that as many as three wives were buried with pioneer husbands.

From the Register-Mail:

On Nov. 15, 1909, a century ago, Knox County student Reuben Johan Erickson won the Illinois Oratorical contest held on the campus of Monmouth College. As a result of his feat, witnessed by more than 300 Knox students and local residents, Erickson became eligible to represent Illinois in the Interstate Contest in Omaha, Neb…..

Before he entered Galesburg High School the structure at Broad and Tompkins Streets was destroyed by a tragic fire. Erickson was a member of the first class to graduate from the newly built school at the same location. He proclaimed on the first page of the first ever known GHS Yearbook that the school colors would be “Silver and Gold.”

Erickson’s greatest contribution to Galesburg High School and its citizens was the first ever school song entitled “The Silver & The Gold”…..

Reuben Johan Erickson, upon departing from GHS, would graduate from Knox College and John Hopkins University. He was a lieutenant in the medical corps during World War I. He practiced medicine in Albany, N.Y., before retiring to Santa Fe, N.M.

Reuben Erickson lived as long as his song was sung at Dear Old Galesburg High School. He passed away on June 5, 1959, following an automobile accident in New Mexico. This coincendentally was the last day of classes at the downtown GHS school site prior to the opening of the current facility on West Fremont Street. Reuben lived as long as his old school.

From the Register-Mail:

It became evident when McDonald and Booth got together at the Riley Hotel that there was disagreement about what actually happened to John Wilkes Booth following his shooting of President Lincoln. Huston Booth held fast to the theory that his famous cousin was not killed in the Virginia barn but escaped and died much later in Oklahoma. McDonald maintained that Booth’s body was eventually buried in Baltimore and Huston maintained that he was buried in the Southwest.

One thing seems certain: When the two men met in Galesburg in October 1924 there were few others in the United States who knew the most facts about the eventual fate of President Lincoln’s assassin.

Story of Lincoln-Douglas plaques

In November 1959 the Knox County Historic Sites, caretakers of the historic Knox County Courthouse, were recipients of the Lincoln-Douglas plaques that originally hung on the east entrance of Old Main on the Knox College campus.

It is a little known fact that when sculptor Avard Fairbanks was commissioned to produce bronze plaques depicting facsimiles of Lincoln and Douglas for the celebration of the famed debates in 1959 there was an unfortunate delay in receipt of the finished models.

Unknown to most observers, the sculptor temporarily substituted plaster moldings which were painted bronze. Max Goodsill who was director of public relations at Knox College, later admitted, “The substitutes looked so realistic that we were able to keep it a deep, dark secret” until the intended plaques arrived.

When the intended plaques arrived it was decided to present the plaster moldings to the Historic Sites Association to be hung in the Knoxville Courthouse where Douglas had presided as a judge and Lincoln pleaded several cases.

For years the plaques hung behind the Stephen Douglas Desk that was in the second floor museum of the Old Courthouse in Knoxville.

From the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Los Angles, California)

The Scopes “Monkey” Trial of 1925 - the “trial of the 20th century” - was fought over the still-smoldering issue of teaching evolution in the classroom.The emotional trial captivated a nation and was followed through the words written by many reporters at the scene in Dayton, Tenn.

While the trial in July 1925 pitted two of the greatest orators of the time - William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow - it was a future Claremont professor who caused the whole uproar.

George William Hunter Jr., who spent his latter years as a lecturer with the Claremont Colleges, wrote the textbook that ignited the legal battle….

All of this uproar swirled around Hunter, a distinguished writer of science texts as well as a college professor of biology.

“A Civic Biology,” initially published in 1914, had only five of 448 pages on biological evolution. He described Charles Darwin’s theory as a “belief that simple forms of life on the earth slowly and gradually gave rise to those more complex …”

Shortly after the trial, Hunter spoke to the Kiwanis Club of Galesburg, Ill., where he taught at Knox College. There is no reason, he maintained, why a scientist must be an atheist.

“The highest concept in the world is that of a creator, of a first cause, of God,” he said on Sept. 30, 1925.

“This concept is outside the realm of science. But there is no more reason for a scientist to say that he must choose between the idea of God and the evolutionary development of man … than it is necessary for a person to choose between water to drink or air to breathe.”

Hunter asked for more tolerance and fair play on the parts of all sides of the issue.

From the Register-Mail:

There seems to be a lot of myth surrounding George Ferris’ life in Galesburg. But the Ferris wheel creator’s connection to town is all cleared up in Richard G. Weingardt’s book “Circles in the Sky: The Life and Time of George Ferris,” released earlier this month.

“Studying someone as mesmerizing and mysterious as Ferris is like solving an intriguing whodunit because none of his personal records remain,” Weingardt said in his book’s preface.

While some may think that George Ferris invented the Ferris wheel in Galesburg, the truth is he only lived here until he was 5 years old, when his family headed west to Carson City, Nev. But even though Ferris’ time in Galesburg was relatively brief, his family played a large role in the founding of the town and Knox College, as discussed in Weingardt’s book….

He said the Library of Congress sent him further research materials. He later began traveling to Ferris’ many homes, including Galesburg. Here he spoke with researchers at Knox College and saw what once was the Ferris family farm, just west of town. The house no longer stands, but a farm still operates on the land. No landmarks from the Ferris family exist today, except for Ferris Street, named for Ferris’ grandfather, one of Galesburg’s founders.

“Everywhere I went I found tidbits,” Weingardt said. Eventually Weingardt was able to string those facts together to create his book.

While the book is dedicated to Ferris and his achievements, it dedicates pages of its early chapters to Ferris’ family and their lives in Galesburg. As detailed in “Circles in the Sky,” Galesburg was founded by the Rev. George Washington Gale and Silvanus Ferris, George Ferris’ grandfather.

Weingardt provides readers with information about life in Galesburg’s earliest days, writing: “Despite Galesburg’s planned beginning, it’s layout didn’t differ much from other prairie towns that had no such orderly birth. Its streets, mostly running north-south and east-west, followed a typical checkerboard pattern centered on a public square. It was different in that it also wrapped around a college campus that was an integral part of the town. But the two main things that set Galesburg apart from other frontier settlements had nothing to with the physical layout. First, the town was founded as a religious community with forbidding rules about all things “sinful,” such as drinking and working on the Sabbath. The second was its stance on slavery.”

Weingardt goes on to discuss Galesburg as home to the first anti-slavery society and a stop on the underground railroad. The book also includes photos of Knox College and Ferris’ relatives.

When Weingardt began writing the book, he said he looked at Ferris’ invention, a wheel far larger than any building and was first displayed at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, and wondered what kind of man would create such a thing. He found that Ferris came from a family of inventors and explorers.

“The Ferris family members were all daring entrepreneurs who all pioneered different things,” Weingardt said. “My research in the Ferris family showed that was ingrained in him.”

From the Register-Mail:

Tracking History —

Knox Manual Labor College was founded in 1837 by George Washington Gale in conjunction with the founding of the city of Galesburg. One of the most noted institutions of higher education in the United States has been known as Knox College since 1857. The reason for choosing of the current college name has become a very curious story to say the least.

To date, there remains a question whether the college was named in honor of General Henry Knox, John Knox or possibly neither. General Henry Knox was a war hero and became the first U.S. Secretary of War in the George Washington administration. John Knox was noted to be one of the founders of the Presbyterian religious movement.

Dr. James McConaughy, president of Knox College from 1918 to 1925, made a serious study on the issue and concluded that the college was named after John Knox. In 1927 college professor Alfred Newcombe, well known at the time for his ability as a historical investigator, examined all available records on the subject.