Mordecai Bane, after marrying Sarah Blodgett, settled at Shaw's Point in
Marshall County. George Henry Bane, my grandfather, was born November 6, 1862,
the youngest of eight boys and the fourteenth child of a family of sixteen.
His father reaped his fields with a cradle and was one of the best at it in
those days. The reapers were in use but were not very common. He and another
man, who had a reputation as a good hand with the cradle, reaped a ten acre
field of oats in one day. Mordecai had a swath of eight feet. He set out hedge
plants for fences around Dana. They would plow the ground where they were going
to plant it and then drop in the hedge plants. Some thought nobody could plow a
straight line but Mordecai Bane so they always got him to do it.
When
George was four the family moved to La Salle County, to a farm which is now
about two and a half miles west of Dana. A creek wound around through it. As
there was no bridge it had to be forded. The best ford was in such a position as
to bring the people who forded it nearly into the yard.
One year it
rained very hard near harvest time. So much water stood in the field that the
reaper could not be used. George and his father cut the grain with cradles while
two of his brothers bound and shocked it. They had to carry it to another part
of the field so it wouldn't have to stand in the water.
Various kinds of
reapers have come out in George's time. The first was a simple machine. After it
had been around, the grain cut had to be removed immediately so the horses
wouldn't step on it on their next round. The next reaper had a platform on it.
It required two men to run it. One worked the machinery that cut the grain and
dropped it on the platform and the other raked it off onto the ground. The next
reaper to come out was a self raker. By pushing a pedal with the foot the rake
would clear the platform of the grain. The next reaper was a self-binder. It
bound the grain with twine. One had been used in Kansas that bound the grain
with wire. These self-binders have been supplanted by the combine.
After
living there for nearly ten years the family decided to go to Kansas. After
getting their tickets at Wenona they got on the Chicago & Alton at sunup Monday
morning. Their household goods and stock had been put on a train the Thursday
before. It was so slow, however, that they passed it at Kansas City. They
reached Hutchinson on Thursday night. The family then settled on a little farm
in Reno County outside of Hutchinson.
There was quite a lot of traffic
through the town. Perhaps the fact of there being a good road accounted for it.
Buffalo bones, picked up on the prairie were taken through to be sold.
George could never get used to Kansas. The sun always seemed to rise in the
north for him. Therefore in 1880 he came back to Illinois and on March 14, went
to work for his cousin, whose name was also George Bane. There was so much snow
on the ground that they could not work in the fields until April 21.
While working for his cousin, George saw a mole ditch dug. A sharp blade about
two and a half feet deep with a "shoe" on the end was put into the ground and
pulled by oxen. The water would seep into this, down to the hole left by the
"shoe" where it would run out into a creek. It was about the same as a tile.
After working for his cousin for two years, George left and went to work for
his grandfather, who lived a mile south and three-quarters of a mile east of
Dana.
One year everyone had the idea of getting ice. It was cut from
rivers in the vicinity and brought to one Robert Pritchett's ice house. Nothing
much was ever made of it as the boards of the ice house soon decayed.
After working for his grandfather for six years, George met Lulu Pritchett. They
were married at his grandfather's on February 10, 1889. They moved to a farm a
mile east and half a mile south of Dana. George prospered as a farmer and became
the father of four boys and one girl. He and his wife live there today. They are
well-known, respected citizens of Dana, and have recently celebrated their
forty-third wedding anniversary.
Extracted 06 Jun 2015 by Norma Hass from Stories of Pioneer Days in La Salle County, Illinois, by Grammar Grade Pupils, published in 1932, page 79.
Extracted 08 Nov 2018 by Norma Hass from Stories of Pioneer Days in La Salle County, Illinois, by Grammar Grade Pupils, published in 1932, page 81.
| Lee | DeKalb | Kane |
| Bureau |
 |
Kendall |
| Putnam | Grundy | |
| Marshall | Woodford | Livingston |
