I found this sitting in my "inbox" in my email and what a 
really nice surprise it was.  This is contributed by Mari
Boepple and gives you a really good idea of what the 
times were like and the hardships our ancestors went
through to make Scott County what it is today.  Please
thank Mari for contributing this to our site.

Thomas B. Campbell is mentioned in the "Scott Co. 
firsts" and he is the one who wrote this story in our 
family's register about his migration to Scott Co.  I 
did not edit this info so the spelling errors are 
accurate.

The books state that John B. Campbell (Thomas B. 
Campbell's father) arrived in Morgan Co. Ills. Oct. 
1830.  It states a little further down the notes that 
Morgan Co. is (now Scott Co.).  He started keeping 
records in April 1844 and kept weather and info 
records through 1857.  Anyway, enjoy.  Mari 
Boepple 

In looking over the preceding pages, I have often 
found matter for serious reflection.  It brings vividly 
my recollection scenes of childhood long since 
forgotten. After a perusal of those pages my whole 
life passes in panoramic view before me and oh! 
how short and improfitable it has been.  In the hope 
that in after years some of my children may feel an 
interest and be profited by a sketch of my past 
history, I am prompted to pass some of my leisure 
moments in recording some of the incidents of my 
life.  Writing only with [the] expectation of my 
nearest and dearest friends to criticise I shall not 
guard particularly against errors in Orthography or 
Grammar but all matters of fact shall be given as 
true to the best of my recollection.  I was born 
according to the record of my father Nov. 29th 
1827 in Henry County, Tennessee and according 
to his record I removed with him and his family 
consisting of my mother, Mary, my oldest sister 
and on brother James to Morgan Co. Ill. [Oct. 1839].  
I am now (Dec. 1874) forty-seven years old yet I 
remember some incidents of our journey such as 
seeing my mother ride and old sorrel mare carrying 
James in her arms, hearing the baby cry for grapes 
as we passed then on wild vines at the road side.  I 
remember our arrival at old uncle Scott Riggs and 
of father telling me that we had got to Illinois. These 
items appear as trifles but they serve to show how 
the human mind is capable of retaining early 
impressions being only three years old.  Uncle Scott 
(as I was learned to call Scott Riggs)(my fathers uncle) 
had a daughter a little older than myself by the name 
of Louise.  I remember meeting her when I was helped 
out of the wagon, she had deep blue eyes which 
attracted my attention, as I understood her name to be 
Blueisa.  I think she is the first person in the world to 
impress my mind with the idea for personal beauty, she 
was my ideal of beauty as long as she lived.  We 
attended the same district school, went to the same 
church, attended the same parties and were intimately 
acquainted as was possible for persons to be so situated 
yet I never intimated to her that I felt more than a 
common friendship for her and I never knew that she
entertained anything more for me until until after we 
were both married and after her death.  I have only 
mentioned this form the fact that I have very often 
dreamed of seeing her and have often spoken of it 
before my family as something singular.  Here too 
is a moral but I leave the reader to find it. 

In 1833 father bought and moved onto the farm now 
occupied by brother Newton.  He paid about $8.00 per 
acre.  There were about 100 acres in cultivation, the 
only dwelling a log cabin 16 X 18 with clapboard roof 
and stick chimney, the only barn a log stable and log 
crib with driveway between there was not a gate on 
the premises.  Eight or ten pairs of draw bars afforded 
passway to the different fields and and lots.  The fences 
were poor and the corners grown up with briars, elders, 
sumach, parsnips, thistles and every conceivable thing 
that ever infested a fence row in the latitude.  The fields 
were set with cotton wood growth, elder brushes, black 
berry briars, Bull nettles, Sand-burrs, cockle burrs and 
Morning Glories with any amount of what we called 
Cimbling vines (a small round gourd).  In looking back to 
the circumanstances then surrounding my father with all 
the obstacles in his way and a debt of $300. Still hanging 
over the farm I can see plainly the necessity of the 
economy he practiced.  Mother spun the wool that made 
all our winter wear for every day and Sunday too, and 
sometimes even helped shear the sheep, a race of long 
legged bare bellied coarse wooled animals that we [now] 
would think disgraceful to own. We wore red flannel or 
lindsey shirts and jeans pants and coats or hunting shirts 
colored with walnut bark in Winter.  Father generally sowed 
a patch of flax which after the necessary manipulations was 
broke with a hand brake by him after which mother and we 
children sketched and hackled then she spun the tow for 
shirts and the flax for pants for summer reserving the 
smoothest part of the web for Sunday suits.  Mother and the 
girls wore red flannel dressed the greatest part of the year 
having calico for Sundays and such times as required a little 
style.  After a time as circumstances improved checked 
flannel took the place of red flannel for the women and
blue jeans the place of walnut color for the men and boys 
and those touched a little with pride would have a suit of 
blue mixed for a Sunday suit.  I never wore anything but 
homespun until I was nineteen years old and never wore 
a pair of fine boots until I was of age. Father always made 
the shoes for the family, both boys and girls until he got out 
of debt, about the time I was sixteen. He got my brothers 
and myself each a pair of boots for winter.

I commenced plowing at eight years old and spent every 
summer in assisting with the crops until the corn was all in 
the crib then put in the balance of the winter at school until 
time to cut corn stalks in the spring which was always done 
with the hoe.  All our time of mornings and evenings was 
occupied in feeding and preparing fuel.  Saturday was 
occupied in hauling up wood to last through the next week 
and preparing enough to last over Sunday.  At home we had 
no time for recreation or amusement so I drew upon the 
hours that should have been spent profitably at school for 
recreation, so far as the strict rules and vigilance of the 
teacher would permit.  I often with some other boy have 
chosen up ready for play the moment school would be out 
putting my dinner in my pocket to be eaten on the sly after 
books were called, thus I continued until I was sixteen.  We 
had had no school for one winter.  A Connecticut Yankee by 
the name of Dayton came to the neighborhood wanting a 
school.  He first went over the neighborhood inspiring the 
parents with the notion of his superior abilities as a teacher 
and working them up to the point that would induce them to 
give him higher wages than were ever paid for a teacher at 
Old Union before.  The requisite number of scholars were 
subderibed, the day set to commence the scholars had all 
been impressed by the parents as they had previously been 
by the teacher of the superior abilities of W. P. Dayton.  
The morning dawned for the opening of the school .  We 
were all early there, The teacher loss no time to follow up 
the advantages gained by impressions already made. The 
point to be gained seemed to be to give each scholar the 
impression; that he not only had the smartest man for a 
teacher in the country but that he or she was the smartest 
boy or girl to be found.  I will remember the surprise I 
experienced as he felt my head and pronounced my mental 
abilities equal if not superior to that of any boy he had ever 
met, he examined my old books which consisted of 
Elementary speller, Eclictic Fourth Reader, Malubren's 
Geography and Adam's Arithmetic, he quickly decided 
that I needed Smiths Arithmetic, Smiths Grammar and 
Olneys Geography saying that I ought to master the 
whole thing in the course of the winter and by the next 
winter be qualified to teach as well as he could.  This was 
the first time in my life that any one ever intimated to 
me that it would be possible for me to do anything but 
labor for a living.  I applied myself diligently often 
studying until ten and eleven O'clock at night and rising 
at 4, go at it again.  In the course of three months I had 
been through the arithmetic, Geography and Grammar, 
and was acknowledged the foremost scholar in school.  
At the suggestion of Mr. Dayton father began to consider 
the question of giving me a course in college but decided 
to send me another winter to my old teacher.  This term 
was expended in reviewing the studies of the previous 
winter which took up but little of my time Dayton could 
take me no farther.  I had discovered during the first term 
that his education was limited and superficial, But he 
certainly had the best faculty of inciting his pupils to study 
and creating a rivalry amongst them of any teacher I ever 
knew.  And he was no less an adept in humbugging the 
parents he would set a day once a fortnight for public 
exammantions and invite the patrons of the school to 
witness the wonderful advancement of their children, 
for such occasions he never failed to have us thourghly 
prepared. Each scholar knew before hand the questions 
he would be required to answer. Every thing was 
hurried through the exercises being interspersed 
with declamation dialogues and affording no time for 
criticism.  I was very fond of declaiming and here 
imbibed the idea of someday becoming a public 
speaker.