Dime Novel Desperadoes: The Notorious Maxwell Brothers

2. The Maxwells in Troubled Fulton County

dUD 2 The Maxwells in Troubled Fulton County In the winter of 1859–60, the Maxwells settled in Fulton County, just west of the Illinois River. The decade that was just starting would bring challenges and hardships that neither David nor Susan could have anticipated , and the family’s struggle, as well as the troubled social environment, would have an impact on their sons, especially Ed. The 1860 federal census, taken in June, records the presence of “David D. Maxwell,” a farmer, age twenty-eight, who owned no real estate and, thus, was a tenant. He claimed only $200 in personal property. At that time Ed was six, Alice was four, and Lon was two. The Maxwells lived in northern Waterford Township, just three and a half miles south of the county seat, Lewistown, which had been founded in 1822 and had the closest post office. Waterford was a fractional township, sharing the normal thirty-six sections of land with Isabel Township, located to the west and south across the Spoon River. It was also the least populated and developed township in the county, with fewer than 500 residents, and less than 100 horses and mules, during the 1860s. Waterford had just seventy farmers in 1860, and only half of them owned any land. Many of the 500 residents were hired hands, tenant farmers, and subsistence, log-cabin settlers who lived by hunting, fishing, gardening, and raising a few hogs. It was a place i-xvi_1-408_Hall.indd 19 3/22/11 1:59:44 PM Fulton County and the Illinois River Valley, showing the approximate location of the Maxwell tenant farm during most of the 1860s. The outlaws were pursued through this region in both 1875 and 1881. i-xvi_1-408_Hall.indd 20 3/22/11 1:59:47 PM 21 The Maxwells in Fulton County of ­ significant poverty. A mile or two west and south of their home was the placid, winding Spoon River, and along its banks were the hamlets of Duncan Mills and Waterford, each of which had a mill. The hilly landscape was extensively wooded, and Ed, if not Lon as well, must have learned to hunt raccoons, squirrels, quail, and deer there. The movement westward of David and Susan Maxwell had followed a well-established pattern. Just as Pennsylvanians like them had been the largest immigrant group in early Ohio, former residents of Ohio were, by the 1850s, the third largest immigrant group in Illinois, and they tended to settle in a dozen central Illinois counties, with Fulton County drawing the largest number. In Waterford Township, most of the substantial farmers were from Ohio, so David probably had an invitation to work there as a tenant farmer before he came to Illinois. The name just before his in the 1860 census is Hiram Johnson, a substantial farmer who owned one-third of Section 3, so David may have rented land from him. In 1860 Fulton County had more than 33,000 people, and all the best land had been settled. Railroad connections had recently been established with Peoria, on the Illinois River, and other communities, so farms were becoming market oriented. Once again, David Maxwell had come to an area where land prices were starting to rise and the dream of farm ownership , for landless tenants, was fading. Moreover, the depression of the late 1850s was still having an impact throughout the Mississippi Valley, including central Illinois, where money was extremely tight and business was slow, according to the Canton Register. By 1860 Lewistown had about 1,000 people, and its leading business enterprises were pork packing, wagon making, and woolen manufacturing. It also had a sawmill, a gristmill, two hotels, and more than a dozen stores. A few buildings were brick; the rest were frame—and all were long and narrow, with board sidewalks and hitching rails in front of them. A small, white, Greek Revival–style courthouse sat in the center of town. Lewistown was a typical farm center village and county seat of the pre–Civil War era. Because it still had no railroad connection (the first tracks crossed the county farther north), the editor of the Fulton Democrat admitted, “We have not yet fully caught the impulse of enterprise and prosperity. We have not gone ahead as fast as some of our neighbors.” Farm life in that era, before horse-drawn implements became common, was a continuous round...