Many years ago – sometime in the 70s I think, some of my cousins came with little cannons they had built. I remember seeing a little cannon one had. My dad – as was common with him – said I can do that, and I can do it bigger. So he ordered two barrels special cast.
Then my dad built a couple big cannons, and not just decorative! He built working cannons to shoot every year. We would load one up and take it to the family fourth of July party to shoot off, at my cousin Kristi’s every year.
When friends would come over I would love to ask “Do we have gunpowder?”, “Can we shoot it?”. My dad made sure I know exactly how to load it too. I still remember the instructions include a dixie cup of gunpowder mixed with flour – it was years later that a chemist friend explained to me why the flour was added. My dad somehow knew….. (Flour when put out into the air like that is explosive – don’t ever put flour on a fire)
At my cousins especially we would then search for anything we could find to ‘load’ into the cannon after the paper was tamped in. I remember everything from sand to even a frog once. As kids we would run around searching just grabbing anything we could find. I’ve seen the little holes that sand put through all the tree leaves and I could swear I remember a story about something someone else loaded putting a hole through something once.
As kids we would laugh at all the people who had too much to drink weaving as they were trying to light the fuse, and I’m amazed that no one was hurt as it would jump back several feet in recoil when the cannon would go off.
After shooting the cannon people would drop by from miles away to find out what had exploded. I think my dad enjoyed shooting it as much as we as kids enjoyed showing it off. It’s one of the things we can say my dad built himself. I’m sure whoever took it either had no idea how much it meant to us or didn’t care. They also are not aware of the history of the cannon.
The cannon itself was in my mother’s yard away from the road. It weighs a lot, so whoever took it had to have come up her driveway and taken it down the driveway to the road and gotten it into their truck. It would take at least a couple people.
The cannon does have wheels and a bolt area to allow for it to be towed, but it hadn’t moved in years. I think the last time I remember my dad shooting it was when my in laws visited almost 15 years ago.
Of course the other thing I see when I look at this camera is how amazing my dad was with just a high school diploma. My dad could engineer most things given the desire. He would see them and put them together, the house we grew up in was in a continual state of remodel as doorways moved and relocated as my parents changed their mind.
My dad would also change his mind about where a stocked pond was and decide to move it.. I still remember waking to find our swimming pool filled with bass and catfish one morning (and dirty pond water). He would clear areas to turn them into fields – including railroad…. So many stories that I’m sure he could tell.
How to get our cannon back though…
James Yeazel is the Husband of my 3rd Great Aunt. As I was searching the Littler side of the family though and was just wondering through the names, I came across the settlement of his estate. Within the papers were forms to hand over the work to an administrator. – In this case two people gave permission with one being his widow.
What I especially found interesting though was that everything was to be appraised and a set amount was to be set aside for the widow – enough to live on for 1 year from the looks of it. Then I assume the rest would be dealt with. In this case the amount in the estate was less than the amount normally handed to the widow for 1 years expenses, so the widow received everything. I also found it interesting that the Value of Property allowed to the widow included the sewing machine.
I’m now curious to search the Illinois Wills site to see who else I can find!
When looking up family history I keep running into family with the same name. The most recent is Edwin Littler. Edwin Littler is my g-grandfather a few generations ago – Mary Ann Littler (wife of Edward Corbly)’s father – his son is also Edwin Littler. 
In Stearns Cemetery is the tombstone for Edwin Littler with no birth or death information. It does include information about Civil War Service though.
Edwin Littler (the son) – 1843-1862 can be found in the Illinois Civil War Muster and Descriptive Roll Database .
Edwin is listed as being in the 125th Il US Infantry which matches his tombstone. He joined August 11,1882, mustered September 3, 1862 and was declared dead on November 25, 1862 at Bowling Green, KY. It includes that he was 19, with black hair, light complexion, dark eyes, and was 5’8″.
Not knowing a lot about the battles in the civil war I am lost as far as cause of death. According to a civil war driving tour write up:
By late 1861, Bowling Green became the heart of the Confederacy’s efforts in Kentucky. The new year brought serious worries to the Confederate occupation force. A Union victory at Mill Springs in Eastern Kentucky, on January 19, 1862, and General Grant’s victories at Forts Henry and Donelson to the west, made Bowling Green untenable for the Confederates. Union General Don Carlos Buell advanced his Army of the Ohio southward from the Green River. Under the command of General Ormsby Mitchel, Bowling Green was bombarded from across the Barren River. The Confederate army evacuated the city, and by mid-February 1862, the city fell into Union hands. Federal troops controlled Bowling Green and Kentucky for the rest of the war. By 1864, there was a vigorous effort by the federal government to recruit and enlist slaves in Kentucky. Bowling Green and seven other military camps were designated to receive and protect those recruits. Source
This makes me wonder if there was a push in November by the Confederate army to take back Bowling Green, or possibly Edwin was sent out with troops to take more ground and wounded in battle – returned to Bowling Green for care and to ultimately pass away.
Edwin’s father, also being named Edwin was more difficult to find in history. He had moved from Ohio, bringing the young Edwin as a child, and set up residence in Vermilion County. Some database records have him recorded as Edward also, making identification a more difficult task. Currently I’ve identified Edwin the father in the 1840 and the 1850 census files.
Verifying that ancestors with the same name and place can be difficult. When in doubt I have been linking information to both individuals and editing later. Not the most ideal, but definitely helpful to keep from losing information. Original sources are critical also.
I always wonder when I find information about infants that died and what the circumstances were. My ancestor Edward Corbly that I have been researching had an interesting case in his history. My ancestor, his daughter Julia was the only surviving daughter. In the family bible though is listed a set of twins, interesting and conflicting information is found after that. With children that died as babies or toddlers, often only family anecdotal information, or gravestones are available.
The bible looked to me as if the twins were born on September 4, 1860 and passing out of this life on September 4, 1862. I normally would have assumed that they died in childbirth if i wasn’t for the 2 year gap (exactly 2 years for both making it very confusing). For twins to die on their birthdate, and both on the same day seems highly unusual. My g-grandmother then was born in 1863.
To add to the confusion, someone that has added the gravestones (no pictures) to FindaGrave, has added Edwin as d. 9/4/1862 and Ella d. 9/4/1892. This is in Tomlinson Cemetery in Illinois (Champaign County). There are no other records of Ella, including in the 1870 census, so I’m sure that the death date from her tombstone is a typo, with the family bible verifying this. This is still a family mystery that is lost to time.
Interestingly enough family lore has it that Julia went on to have a stillborn baby that was then buried in the copse of trees by the road on the old Eldridge homestead – land that went on to belong to my parents. The story is that the baby was wrapped in a baby blanket and buried shortly after being stillborn.
Later I did do more research and after realizing that Ella and Edwin’s parents got married in 1861 I looked very closely at the birth date. I’m now sure it’s really 1862. Stillbirth explains the mystery.
My Uncle Frank was always full of stories… surprisingly none ever were things ‘he did’. His favorite comment was ‘I don’t know if the statute of limitations is up on that yet.’ My mother would tell stories of my uncle making moonshine and having my grandfather drive a decoy car while another car with a false backseat would take the ‘good stuff’. There was also a story about my uncles breaking my grandfather out of the westville jail by pulling the side off of the jail. I may have to ask my mother for more details about that. I don’t remember ever hearing why he was there or what happened after.
The story that was told the most though involved how my uncle ended in the military, how my uncle Ralph got TB and passed away, and a barn in Grape Creep. From my memory the story goes that my uncles were disagreeing with someone and it ended with them deciding to burn his barn down. As frequently happens they were caught and brought before a judge. My uncle Frank and my uncle Ralph were given the choice of the military or jail. (I was never completely clear why my grandfather wasn’t involved) I haven’t found the actual record from the courts or documentation of the fire yet, but I have documentation of my uncle Frank in the military in Feb 1943 (Sggt E5) and my uncle Ralph’s death May 18, 1943. My mother retells the stories of my uncle Ralph being found sitting under a tree and how he had been released from jail to die after getting TB in jail. My grandmother and grandfather were living in a small ‘building’ put together by my grandmother’s brothers at the site of the mine my grandfather and his brothers were mining. At the time my mother wasn’t even 3 years old yet and was sleeping in a drawer my grandmother had pulled out of a dresser.
My grandfather’s death was just one month later when he drown while swimming on Flag Day (June 14, 1943). My grandmother moved home to live with her mother shortly after and my uncle Frank was left as the only brother left. (They did have a sister Maude that survived until the year 2000)
My uncle Frank survived until the year 2004 and after the military had went on to sell manufactured homes on the property that his father originally owned. His stories though were always interesting. One even included riding a motorcycle across a beam where a bridge had been located. When hearing his stories you can almost picture all the old shows with ‘good ole boys’ running through the country. Even the name Hawbuck, Illinois sounds like a place where ‘good ole boys’ will be running around.
