Leland J. Kennedy Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Q: Pawnee has a big mine.
A: Yes I guess so, sure. Virden, Virden, we'd go through Virden, but whether there was
a siding there I don't know, but all of those towns in my beginning of a career in Springfield,
were on the Illinois Terminal. You could go on the Illinois Terminal to Springfield, but you
had to go to Granite City to catch it, or over to - you could go out to Hamel there at -
I have done that but very seldom.
Q: I notice the Pevely is a big granary, is that?
A: Well, it's Pevely Mill, it used to be. Now, in my younger days there was a Sparks Milling
and the Standard Tilton Milling and if memory serves me correct, the present Pevely dairy,
or mill, is an outgrowth of Standard Tilton-Sparks. They were all merged you know and
I guess as they modernized their equipment and their exports and imports declined, or rose,
they merged those two mills. That's where they were. The Sparks Milling Company is the
office still sits there.
And there used to be an old prison in Alton, an old Confederate prison down there. You
mentioned Pevley Mill, why, you passed the - maybe a mile, it couldn't be - the river runs
east and west in Alton, and a mile or maybe a half a mile up the hill there, when you look
up the hill - you come up the road, if you look up there when you go by Pevely, there's
an old - it could be a parking - it's a parking lot now. That's the site of the old Confederate
prison in Alton.
But how many inmates they had there or not, I don't know. There is a well-kept Confederate
graveyard and monument out here on Rosher Street in North Alton that would be
worth your tour, sometime when you're over on this duty for the university, to look into
that because I don't think too many people know it's there. But it's well-kept. It evidently
has a caretaker. It's very accessible, but my wife and I just were riding around here, oh,
one time this summer and she wanted to find out where somebody lived and we were out
in that area and I - oh it was a school - it is taught in the Alton schools. You've got
the Lovejoy monument and they have a federal cemetery over by the Lovejoy monument,
it's a federal - hut I think it's full. I don't think they're taking any more graves.
Q: I suppose the federal government takes care of the place?
A: I think so. They have a caretaker and I suppose they take care of the Confederate too,
it's wcll-kept. Who the caretaker is, or how it's taken care of I don't know, but I don't
think many people - I doubt if it's taught in schools. We were taught that in schools, that
it was there.
Oh, and Hartford had a tannery. Hartford Tannery. A lot of girls worked there during
the war, out of high school or just before they were going to get married, from prominent
middle-class families there, well-to-do and just ordinary citizens. It was a big plant, the
tannery was, and they - well there was a seven-day operation around the clock. It's closed
now, but during the war it was - the Watkins family, he was the manager and in fact
this Levinson who just died, his wife was a Watkins, and her father was one of the big shots
in it, or one of the executives in it. I shouldn't say big shot, that sounds like a street name,
but he was an executive in it.
We have a family out here, his father was an executive in it. And I mentioned that my
mother took in roomers and boarders and when the tannery first started, and I was still
in grade or high school, my mother had several tannery executives before they could get
housed. They didn't stay that long, maybe four or five or six weeks, or something like
that. But different women had their name on that list down there to have - you know,
that's the way boarding houses are done, or rooming houses or whatever you would call it,