Hollmans impacted Vandalia, Galena
Last month, my friend Rita and I spent a girls' get-away weekend in Galena.
Rita had been in Galena several times, attending conferences at a nearby resort, but having little time to enjoy the ambience of the town. To further add to the interest of the trip, she had booked our room at the historic Stillman Inn Bed and Breakfast.
Set atop the highest hill on the east side of town, the inn was located on Bouthillier Street, a stone’s throw from the Ulysses Grant family home, given to the former president by local citizens in 1865.
A tour of the Grant home was very interesting, as was the fact that much of the furnishings used by the family are still in the house today. Our guide informed us that the former president smoked 26 cigars a day, and died of lung cancer at age 63. A statue of his wife, Julia, in the side garden of the home, is the only statue of a first lady in the country.
The trolley ride through the streets and hills of Galena took us past homes of various architectural styles. It was when we reached the humble miners' cottages that my thoughts turned to Fredrick G. Hollman, who left Vandalia in 1827 for the lead mines of Galena, never to return.
Fredrick Hollman played a large part in the history of Vandalia’s first years; his role can never be forgotten or diminished. Hired by Ferdinand Ernst to join him in America, where he would found a colony, Hollman remained in the new capitol town of Vandalia, and when Ernst and the 96 colonists arrived on Dec. 19, 1820, all was ready.
For a few years, the life for members of the Ernst Colony was idyllic. Fredrick Hollman married Martha Thompson in 1821 and bought a farm southeast of Vandalia. In August 1824, Ferdinand Ernst died of bilious fever. When he died, Hollman wrote, so did the hopes and dreams of the colony.
News from the lead mining region of the Fever River area of Northern Illinois had filtered into the Illinois capitol, and on March 27, 1827, Hollman, James R. Vinyard and J. Vinyard, F. Reesman, George Rosemeyer, Tom Higgins, W. and E.C. Davis, and two or three Kirkpatricks, left Vandalia for St. Louis.
There, they boarded the steamboat Indiana, which had about 20 cabins and was headed to the lead mines on a journey expected to take four days.
Hollman wrote that when they arrived, the settlement that would be named after the ore they were mining, Galena, consisted of a “few log huts."
“There was one long building made up of a number of small cabins placed end to end, which was occupied as a hotel,” he wrote.
In July 1827, when the party arrived, there was unrest between the Indians and the settlers. Many of the miners had left their claims and come to the safety of Galena.
Hollman told of meeting some Vandalia acquaintances who had arrived at Galena a week sooner, and had gone immediately on to "new diggins," where they had made a discovery of lead ore. They built themselves a cabin and were mining with a good prospect of success.
Hollman and three companions, including George Rosemeyer, were offered “quarters in their cabin when it would be safe to return there.” Long story short, they did well; and Fredrick decided it was time to bring his wife and small family from Vandalia to the mines.
Before he left, he gave instructions to have logs cut and a cabin built. Fredrick took a steamer at Galena and remembered that shortly after starting on the journey, they passed another steamer heading for Galena.
On that vessel were his wife; children; brother-in-law, Harrison Thompson; and cousin, Mary Ann. One can imagine how he felt when he reached Vandalia and the home of his mother-in-law, Elizabeth Thompson, only to find that his family was in Galena.
Hollman wrote that he made it back to Galena in nine days, walking overland part of the way. Reaching “New Diggins,” he found that his wife and family, who had all come down with measles, had been taken in by his friends.
Hollman later moved with his family to Platteville, Wis., and is buried in the old city cemetery there. He is honored as a Wisconsin pioneer, while in Vandalia we honor him among the earliest settlers of the early Illinois capital.