(upbeat music) - [Presenter] Illinois Stories is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Hello, welcome to Illinois Stories.

I'm Mark McDonald in Hillsboro, where they're coming up very closely on their bicentennial celebration.

Now Montgomery County already celebrated its bicentennial recently.

Hillsboro is right behind them by a couple of years.

And behind me is the oldest existing home in Hillsboro, an 1834 home called the Harkey House.

And this also happens to be the home to the collection of the Montgomery County Historical Society.

So we're gonna take a tour of this and see much of the collection here today.

And Mike Rappe, you've been a member of this.

It's a great organization.

- It really is.

- And it's interesting for our viewers, I think, because not too many people, not too many organizations have the oldest home as where their collection is, which is kind of a neat thing.

- We're really lucky.

We really are and happy to have it.

Originally, this home sat one block to the north, which is where the fire station is up the street.

And in 1968, the Lingo family who owned a car dealership on the corner up here needed to expand needed, to go across the street.

And they offered the house to the Historical Society.

And luckily at that time, the Historical Society had the means to be able to actually have it moved in one piece one block to the south here, and she sits there today - In 1834, this would've been a showplace.

- Had to have been.

Even the courthouse in Montgomery County was still logs.

So the homes around, this was certainly a showplace.

And I think probably the envy of the downtown part for quite a long time.

- People were living in cabins and there weren't many here.

- There really weren't.

And like you said, there were a lot of people living in cabins and the ones who weren't living in cabins, more than likely were just living in a small frame home that was probably not in the best of shape or maybe had even built around the cabin at some point in time, and was more of a structure than it really was a house at that time.

- Let's go little closer.

- Sounds good.

- Because I wanted to get a good long view of it, but we can get a little closer.

We're looking at the front of the house and you can see there's been an addition put on the back, which was put on.

- [Mike] 1890.

- [Mark] 1890, okay.

And the Harkeys still lived here at the time, is that right?

- [Mike] They did, they did.

They lived in the house until 1906.

- [Mark] And I see you've got a sign here, which explains the history of the house.

And I'll bet that during your bicentennial celebration of the county, you got a lot of people coming through here, didn't you?

- We do have, we a gathering every year called Old Settlers and we're open during Old Settlers.

And we get a lot of people who do come through at that time.

And yet just because it's one block off the street, there's actually people who have lived here quite a while who don't really know that it's here.

And you'll get them to come in for the first time and they'll say, well, I haven't been in here in my life.

And when they come in and look at it and see what we have inside there, they're pretty happy.

- This edition, I think you said it was 1906.

- [Mike] 1890.

- [Mark] 1890, okay.

So the Harkeys were still here.

They lived here until 1906.

- [Mike] That's correct.

- [Mark] And then it turned over several times.

And then I guess nobody's lived in it since '68?

- Actually, as far as we know, there was only one owner from 1906 until 1950.

And it was a lady who actually gave piano lessons.

And a lot of kids came to her for piano lessons.

And then in 1950, it was no longer in her possession.

And really it sat vacant and was used at times as a warehouse.

So it was starting to fall into pretty bad shape.

- Yeah, actually it was a good time for the Historical Society to take it over.

- I think it was a now or never proposition.

- We're gonna talk about this more later, but moving a structure like this that was built in 1834 must've been, I don't know how you do it.

I don't know how anybody gets it done.

- Well, when we go inside, you'll see pictures of them having this house moved all at one time by truck and in 1968, I mean, I'm sure at that time they had some pretty good means of moving things, but you know, it's not like 2021.

And the fact that they were able to get it here in one piece for the most part is pretty amazing.

- If we look at the front, now it's kind of hard to get an angle on it, but if we look at the front, I think you said that this is a Federalist style.

- [Mike] It is.

- [Mark] You know, in the Midwest, you see a lot of them are called I-houses.

You know, we're it's the same.

It's Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, that whole Federalist style is very prevalent.

- [Mike] I've heard that terminology myself.

- [Mark] Okay, so I guess the next thing to do here, and the porch I'm sure was not original.

That had to be added on.

- [Mike] Yeah, it would have been when it was moved.

The porch was changed to just make it usable.

Now the foundation itself, the brick that you kind of see down around the foundation, that is the original brick from the original foundation also.

- [Mark] It makes you wonder how in the world.

Well, we'll talk about this.

- [Mike] It's amazing.

It's really amazing.

- We'll talk about how in the world do you move all those bricks without them getting completely unsettled?

But let's go in and take a look.

- It couldn't have been easy.

That's for sure.

- No.

- And also these windows while we're here, if I could say, there is speculation that these are not the original windows below.

They probably would've had the six above six, the same style here, but in the 1930s, when the house was still setting to the north a block, there was a gentlemen who had kind of told the town that he was gonna do what he did.

And he bought numerous sticks of dynamite and blew himself and his house to smithereens and all of the homes and properties around had window damage and plaster damage and everything else.

So these windows undoubtedly had to be taken out, but they looked the period.

And again, I think every time they do something, they try to make it look as if it would've been the period.

- Well, it smells old.

- Yeah.

- The musty, old houses.

- And well, it should.

- Yeah, it should, 'cause it's really is old.

The entry hall is very small.

They didn't put a lot of grandeur into this, but you're very fortunate that you still have the original staircase and it's kinda nice.

It sure is sturdy.

- [Mike] It's very, well-made.

It really is.

The craftsmanship in this house is really good.

The trim, all that you see in the house, it's all original.

It's held together well.

- And like we mentioned before, in 1834, having that much woodwork done that would've been a great expense.

- It had to have been a family with some means.

- They certainly did.

What did he do for a living, by the way?

- He was a tanner.

- A tanner.

- He tan hides and he actually ran his operation just down the hill from here and maybe a few hundred yards to the north.

- And they came from North Carolina?

- They did, they came from North Carolina as so many people in the Hillsboro Montgomery County area did.

- Is that right?

- They did, a lot.

And then down in the southern part of Montgomery county, a lot of those original settlers actually came from Tennessee.

And, but the Hillsboro mostly was settled by-- - There was a Hillsboro, North Carolina, which they may have brought that with them.

- That's the speculation is that they named it after because a lot of the sellers actually came from Hillsboro, North Carolina.

And a lot of the speculation is that that may be one of the reasons that Hillsboro, along with the hilly terrain, but at times Hillsboro was spelled with a O-U-G-H as opposed to just the O-R-O.

And I believe that Hillsboro, North Carolina and other Hillsboros throughout the country are spelled some of them with O-U-G-H. - Yeah, well that would be, it sounds like an English sort of.

Now, we've talked about exposing the bricks over here in the corner.

Little did you know when you started to move this that all of the walls were brick, which means it can fall apart.

- [Mike] And it did.

It did during the-- - [Mark] Oh my goodness.

- [Mike] And that's a great example.

And as you can see the sign there, it says an example of braced frame construction of the house.

It's amazing.

Again, the fact that it wasn't just logs is amazing.

Again, the bricks, at that time, to have them made couldn't have been cheap.

So again, the Harkeys when they came here in 1830 must at least have had the means to do some things.

- [Mark] That would've been a fireplace.

- [Mike] It would've been one of the original fireplaces.

- And I'm assuming what happened when you moved the house and the bricks fell apart rather, than try to rebuild the fireplace, they just bricked it up.

- Right, it would've been cost prohibitive.

The original plan of the grant was to try to maybe rebuild the fireplace here and the one on the north wall, that you'll see in a little bit.

But it was just too cost prohibitive.

- Let's note now, we're in room number one.

The furnishings in this house are all from the period that the Harkeys would've lived here.

- [Mike] That's correct.

- [Mark] From 1834 to 1906?

- [Mike] That's correct.

- [Mark] So these are not the Harkey's belongings.

- [Mike] They are not.

- [Mark] They took them with them.

- [Mike] They had to've, yeah.

Their belongings were probably quite nice.

They weren't gonna build a house like this, and I'm sure the furnishings they had and their family was so big that when it was time for everybody to go their own separate ways, I'm sure that everything got divided up equally.

- [Mark] But the historical society was committed to keeping it to the period when the Harkeys lived here.

So everything you see when you come in is from that same time period.

- [Mike] Right, from 1834 to 1906.

Should be applicable, yes.

- [Mark] Can you imagine moving one of these across the prairie?

- [Mike] I wouldn't wanna try.

- [Mark] 'Cause it wasn't made locally.

Where the heck did this come from?

- [Mike] Undoubtedly came by train and somehow a horse and carriage or somebody later on maybe in a U truck.

- You'd have to devote an entire buggy to that one piano.

- And a lot of men.

- And a lot of, that's right.

Wow.

- Yes.

- Okay, so this would've been formal parlor.

- We think so.

We think this might even have been where we were just at a place where chances are the kids weren't often allowed.

They would've been told get in here and play, you know?

It was more of a formal parlor.

- Yeah, and most home, like I said, people were living in a cabin.

They had one room, one big room.

So this is well-off.

When you can give the kids a place to play in the living room, call it a living room.

That's pretty interesting.

And again, here we ran into this again where they had a fireplace in here.

- [Mike] That's right.

- And I'm sure it was these two fireplaces are what kept the house warm.

- And they also extended into the second story, which we'll see later, but they terminated them at the floor level.

- Well, the heat rising would've kept the whole house, you know, probably warm enough.

Now there is another interesting local aspect in this room.

If you go just down the road a little bit there's a town called Donaldson.

- [Mike] That's correct.

- [Mark] And it's named after an artist who had some fame.

- [Mike] His family--- - [Mark] And still is quite well known and and there's a picture of him here working in his studio in Donaldson.

And what was his name?

- [Mike] His name was Carson Donald.

- [Mark] Carson Donald.

- [Mike] And his family, his ancestors who the town was named for came to that area reasonably early and settled there.

And that's a picture of him working in his studio in his barn loft.

And he is a listed artist.

And I can tell you just from personal experience that his paintings are hard to come by.

- [Mark] Well, let's take a look at some of them.

'Cause you've got these, these are all original Donald paintings here.

- [Mike] They are.

- [Mark] You have some personal experience because you tried to buy one, right?

- [Mike] I tried to buy one about the size of a letter envelope and it didn't work out.

I've been quite high on it.

- [Mark] You couldn't afford it, huh?

- [Mike] No.

- [Mark] So how did the Historical Society come by these?

- [Mike] Over the years, different people have acquired Carson Donald paintings.

He was really prolific.

He painted quite a few.

We've had these donated to us by individuals.

I believe somebody, a couple of them from the Donald family, and just over the years, you acquire things and people are kind enough to say, hey, we don't want them anymore or they're not right with our style or whatever, and would you like to have them?

And we don't ever turn down a Carson Donald painting.

- [Mark] I wonder what he did in the spring, summer, and in winter because everything is a fall.

- And he did do some scenes in fall, winter, or spring also, but he did woodcuts a lot too.

And he was known for his woodcuts.

I do have a couple of woodcuts.

- It's beautiful stuff.

- It really is.

- I love the autumn colors.

- It really is.

- He was really hooked on autumn.

But yeah, no, it's really nice stuff.

- And it looks nice in here, it helps.

- It really does, it sure does.

Okay, so again, period furnishings.

- Right.

- Now we're gonna leave the original footprint of the house.

- We are now.

- This was the back of the house.

And a walkway was cut through here in 1890, okay.

- 1890.

- So they expanded so that they'd be able to, so they'd be able to have a place where they could have a dining room.

- Dining room.

- And they needed a kitchen.

- That's right.

- They probably had a kitchen outside at some point.

- Sure, I think like everybody else, they would've had, a lot of times they called it a summer kitchen, but you would've undoubtedly cooked there year round, and may have even had what they used to call a dog trot that would go between the home and the outside kitchen.

Part of the reason was obviously, if they were cooking in the summertime, it would get awfully hot.

It was already, you know, hot as could be at that time anyway, but also, if the kitchen would catch on fire, it would be a lot easier to maintain in a separate area and not let it spread to the house also.

And so there were multiple reasons why it would've been outside, yeah.

- And this flooring is original to that period of time.

- [Mike] To the 1890s, and the flooring that we've just been in is also was original to the 1834 structure.

- And this is, we were talking outside about the challenges to moving the house.

And I really like the fact that y'all were able to keep some of the photos that were taken of the process.

Because like you say, in 1968 it wasn't, it's still not easy to move a house, but back then moving a house from a brick foundation and brick walls, even if it's only a block or two.

My goodness.

- [Mike] And they did it for cost of $3,000.

- [Mark] Is that right?

- [Mike] Yeah, not too bad.

- [Mark] Oh wow.

- I'm glad they only had to move it a block.

- These are really neat.

These really show the bones of the house too.

- It does, yeah.

That must've been an amazing process.

In '68, I was seven.

So I don't remember them doing it.

Had I known, I think I probably would've come up and watched.

- Oh yes, I would now.

I'd come see how it's done.

- I would too.

- Abraham Lincoln has a presence in much of Illinois, but y'all are really proud of this because he apparently liked Hillsboro quite a bit.

He was on his way back and forth to Vandalia and this was right on the way and stop here frequently.

- [Mark] He did, and he had a lot of good friends.

Probably one of his best friends was a family by the name of Eccles.

And they lived literally just there, their home at that time was literally just across the street.

And then there's one house that you need to skip over to get to where their house was.

It's no longer there.

They had been friends for a long, long time and the piece of wood that you're kind of looking at right now, which kind of doesn't look like much, but it actually was salvaged when the house was being torn down to build the current brick structure that is there, and the people who knew where exactly Abraham Lincoln used to sit when he came to the Eccles on the staircase, and he'd stretch his legs out and spend some tales and tell some stories and maybe drink a little bit of cider or something, that is the step that he sat on.

Pretty interesting.

I'm glad they saved it.

- [Mark] Well it's nice that, yeah really nice that somebody was able to salvage that.

(indistinct) - [Mike] May not look like much to some, but.

- [Mark] Yep, well, that's terrific.

And then of course they had to have a kitchen too.

- [Mike] They did.

- [Mike] And this is a nice, big space to work.

And of course you have six kids, you need some space if you're gonna feed them, you know, feed them all day long.

- For 1890, it really is a pretty good sized space.

And we talked before about the platter.

This platter, the big platter right here, I'll get this out of the way, is the only thing that we know 100% sure did belong to the Harkey family.

And it's a shame we don't have more things, but at least we have that.

- [Mark] Yeah, and how did this get saved?

- [Mike] I have no idea.

- You just know that it's part of their collection.

- The Society actually was formed in 1913, and it went really well, I think, until sometime probably in the 1930s it kind of tapered off.

And then some people back in the sixties decided to, it was time to kind of redo the Historical Society and get it started back up.

And I would assume that that has been with the house the whole time.

When they moved the house, they probably found that somewhere in the home or Mrs. Gilmore, the piano teacher may have saved it.

But that's the only thing that we know that actually belonged to the Harkeys.

- [Mark] Well, it's nice to have something.

- [Mike] Yeah, better than nothing.

- Now the porch that we're about to go onto was built on, I guess, at the same time this addition was built on.

- We believe so, yes.

- Okay, but there's some items of interest out there and I'd like to go out if we can.

Okay Mike, this porch was built off the kitchen back when, 1890 probably, something like that.

- That's what everybody believes.

- Yeah, it wasn't here originally 'cause what we're looking at here is, is the original back of the house before the addition.

And then that would've been the back door?

- The original back door.

- They would've come down.

There may have been a porch here at some point.

- Could've been.

- They probably got rid of when they built the new one.

- Or at least a walkway of some kind.

- Yeah, some way to step down and then get outside to you know, to the latrine, and wherever else they needed, the outdoor kitchen.

You know, all those kinds of items.

You've got, it's interesting.

That old slid is priceless.

- Is it.

- That is really nifty.

I don't think I've ever seen one like that.

- [Mike] Again, it's another example of people come up with things and say would you like that?

And yeah.

- [Mike] We would, yeah.

Has nothing to do with Harkeys, but it's cool.

- [Mark] It doesn't, but it is period correct to what they may have had.

You know, we've talked a lot about the Harkeys being people of means, but you know, they surely suffered a lot of the same depredations that everybody at that time, you know, suffered.

And for example, I know that their sixth child, Mary, she passed away when she was only one.

Then they lost a daughter when she was eight.

Another daughter, when I believe she was 18.

A son when he was 25.

So of the nine children that they had, again, they had their hardships.

- Yeah, they did, they did.

- Interestingly bathtub, how would you like to have been the sixth child or so to-- - Well, you'd use the same water.

That's what the youngest kid always gets the dirtiest water, I guess.

But I mean, that's what you used 'cause that's what you had and you're not gonna haul a lot more water than you need.

- [Mike] That's correct.

- Now I wanted to come out here for another reason too, because, in the back.

- Shove it, there you go.

- Is another very old building, which has a relationship to this.

And this is not, the Historical Society owns this building and rents it out in this part of where your income comes from.

- [Mike] That is as our income.

- [Mark] But it was first, before that it was school.

- It was.

The structure that you're seeing now, of course, is not that old, but it was built around what at that time was the first school in Hillsboro proper.

I don't know that all of the logs are still inside, but I know that one wall still has the logs that the home is built around.

And the rafters in the attic, you can look up and see they were all hand cut and still have the bark on the logs themselves.

So yeah, this is, everything that you read and there's some people that argue with you, but everything that you read said that the first school sat on the brow of the hill and during the phase where they were trying to get grants for the Harkey House and to move it and to restore it, there was also mentioned made that the house would be sitting directly in front of what had been the original school in Hillsboro, the first school.

- This was probably a one room schoolhouse.

- I would think so.

- And it was built, if it was here in the 1830s, that again, like the other buildings around it, there would've been very few buildings and most of them cabins.

- That's right.

- And this would've been a mansion.

- It really would've been.

- A mansion!

- Yeah, and even though it's sat one block north, the other houses, I know the house across the street is really old.

There's a house two up that I think are extremely old.

So this was one of the areas of town that was developed first, at least as far as dwellings.

- Okay, let's walk over here.

Just briefly, because this has nothing to do with the Harkeys either, but I just think it's cool that you saved it.

This old, this tells you a lot, actually, if you're trying to find out who was who, when the jail, the old jail was built in 1908, it gives you a pretty good idea.

And this was the cornerstone of the old jail?

- [Mike] Yes it was.

- [Mark] The old jail's come of course, right?

- It's gone.

It's at where the new courthouse sits today.

Yeah, it says, again, somebody calls and says hey, we've got this thing and we've got nowhere to put it and we don't want to haul it off, are you guys interested in it?

Well, sure we'll take it.

And even what you see here, the big old steel door, the jail was built with a turret front and you can see that the door has curvature to it.

And that was the original door that was on the outside of the jail.

And we got a telephone call one day from somebody saying that it was way out in the country.

They were actually using it as a bridge across a small creek.

And did we want it?

Well, sure.

So myself and Jim May and my buddy Greg DeWright, we went out to get it and thank goodness, the gentleman who was donating it to us and his dad were there because that is one heavy door.

We loaded it onto a wagon, and it was all we could do to get it from the country and through the timber, through the woods.

- And it's not going anywhere, is it?

- [Mike] No, not for now.

- Not till you resurrect that jail and put it back.

- [Mike] Exactly.

- Okay, well terrific, thanks.

- You're welcome.

- Okay, Mike.

- What up?

- A lot of kids and a lot of steps landed on these steps over the years, didn't they?

- Yes, they did.

- I'm surprised that they're not all warped up.

- They're in good shape.

They really are.

- Yeah, in good shape.

The whole house is in good shape considering how much traffic it got.

We talked about six kids, actually nine kids, three passed away.

- Nine total.

- But six at any one time would've been here.

Let's go in this room 'cause this would've been the kid's room.

And can you imagine, it's pretty tight quarters, huh?

- Yeah, and if there were, let's say as many as six kids here at one time, you can, I guess imagine them sleeping in here kind of packed in like sardines, I guess.

I suppose they could've had a pallet of some kind on the floor for maybe little ones or something like that, but yeah, these are the old rope style beds.

And I know you've heard the phrase sleep tight before, and that means tighten the ropes on your bed so you're sleeping tight.

- [Mark] Is that right?

- [Mike] That's where it came from.

- [Mark] Look at that.

Yeah, well these are not tight.

I tell you what, I'd have to tighten these up before I got in, but that's how they're made.

- [Mike] Yep, it sure is.

- And you can see that rough hewn, real rough hewn lumber.

- [Mike] They are.

- [Mark] Yeah, neat.

- [Mike] We don't know who donated those to us, but the two beds are not identical.

So my guess is that they were donated by two separate vendors.

- [Mark] Nice examples of quilts that might've been around at the time.

And I like this too, because these examples of what the kids may have worn to bed.

This is all manner of clothing, bed clothing, for kids.

- [Mike] They really are.

And the trunks are full of clothing also, and the dresser that you'll see here in a minute.

- [Mark] Yeah.

Okay, so we had a two bedroom, all this house for two bedrooms.

- Two bedrooms.

- We wouldn't build it that way anymore.

- Four rooms total when it was built.

two above, two below.

- And then this would've been the master we think.

- We think, we do.

Again, the room is full of period pieces from anytime from 1834 to 1906.

And we've got some strange things in here, but it's actually, behind this bed, there's also an entrance to attic space.

- [Mark] Oh, is that right?

Have you ever been in there?

- [Mike] We have and there isn't anything in there at all.

- [Mark] Too bad.

That's where you find treasures.

(indistinct) - Secret door of some kind.

These are kind of interesting.

I mentioned it just shows, even though, you know, sometimes even, not that this belonged to the Harkeys, but undoubtedly, somebody decided to recycle.

This was made out of probably an old lid.

Different pieces of wood that were made into usable furniture.

And this with the name Litchfield on it, and undoubtedly either came from the city of Litchfield or some of the original founders who were named Litchfield.

- Never let anything go to waste.

If you've got a good piece of wood, build something around it.

- Early recycling.

- Yep, I'll be darned.

If we look just to the left of the bed down, this is a education for kids.

They may not know what a bed pan is.

They may not know what it's like to live without running water and a toilet, but this is what it was like because you didn't, on a winter night, you didn't wanna go out to the latrines.

- [Mike] And that's actually a little bit newer than what you would expect in the chamber pot that's behind it there, but yeah, it would have been porcelain for the most of the time that the Harkeys lived in this house.

- Well, even if people aren't interested in the Harkeys and aren't interested in this house, if they're interested in period clothing and furniture, this is really a cool place.

- It really is.

It makes for a really nice tour.

And we're lucky because it does encompass different timeframes and we have a lot of different things, not just a few of the same style or something like that.

So yeah, it gives a pretty good example of what the period pieces would have been through that specific timeframe.

- You may have noticed that the paint is flaking off the Harkey house.

The plan is by 2023, when Hillsboro's bicentennial occurs, that the paint job will be complete.

And I'm told that it won't be white because white was not used during that period.

The Harkey house is available, if you have a group, by appointment and they'll arrange to have you go through for a tour.

With another Illinois Story in Hillsboro, I'm Mark McDonald.

Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Presenter] Illinois Stories is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

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