Rich, black soil draws farmers to area

While leafing through a back issue of the genealogy quarterly of the Montgomery County Genealogical Society, headquartered in Litchfield, a series of letters written by Jacob Cress and Daniel Ludwick in the 1830s caught my attention.
Addressed to family members still living in  Cabarrus County, N.C., the men, who were brothers-in-law, wrote letters encouraging their family to leave the “old wourn out red fields” of North Carolina and come to Illinois, were the land “is as rich and black as you wold want it.”
The Cress family occupies a substantial branch on the family tree of my three sons,  and was among the large German element that had migrated from Pennsylvania to North Carolina during the latter half of the 18th century. They settled along Dutch Buffalo Creek in Eastern Cabarrus County.
In a letter to his brother, Nicholas, dated April 30, 1830, Joseph wrote: “I now have got 240 acres of land, two cows and calfs, and 14 head of hogs, three bed steds, a spinning wheel and what we need for the beginning seasons. More than we had before, and have a little money left. I must inform you that the prairies are know greener than your wheat filds.”
In a separate letter to his sister, Nancy, and her husband Daniel F. Ludewick, he wrote, “I am realy sorrow for you that you work them old red filds and git nothing, and hear it is black and rich as you wold want it.”  He then continued by encouraging them to join him in Illinois, providing them with his route from Concord, N.C., through to Shawneetown, Ill., with their final destination as Hillsboro.
Daniel and Nancy Cress Ludewick did leave the red fields for the black prairie the following year, and settled not far from Joseph Cress. The roots they set down were strong, and descendants of both the Cress and Ludewick families still live in Montgomery and Fayette counties.
The letters that the two men sent to their families in Cabarrus County were deposited in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina. They are among the Ludewick-Ritchie Papers, and can be viewed by researchers.
In a letter written on May 10, 1832, from Daniel Ludewick to his father, Henry Ludewick, in Cabarras County, N.C., he tells about the "frontiers of the state being invaded by an enemy, that is the Indian nation called Black Hawke."
Daniel goes on to tell that two weeks earlier, on April 18, all of the militia men of the county were cited to convene at Hillsboro by order of Gov. John Reynolds. There were 450 eligible men in the militia; and from them, 50 would be drafted.
The men were to be mounted on horseback. Daniel goes on to say that, “On Good Friday, the 20th of April last, all the men assembled at nine o’clock. They then perrated (paraded) and ware drawn in a close colume by there respective field officers and captains.”
Dr. Levi Day Boone, a grandnephew of Daniel Boone, gave an address concerning liberty, and admonished them to not let liberty fall. The colonel then told the men assembled that if any man would volunteer who did not have a horse, he could choose any horse he wanted to mount. Therefore, a good horse was every man’s objective.
Daniel wrote that the volunteers “were got easy, but a good many horses were lacking.”
This is when George Ludewick and his cousin, Peter Cress, who both had first-rate horses, found that their horses could be impressed for service. They consulted Daniel on the matter, asking what he thought they should do.
His advice, as he recounted to his father, was that their horses would be pressed if they did not volunteer. The two men decided that rather than have their horses pressed and mounted by someone else, they would both volunteer.
In Daniel’s letter to his parents, he wrote that the contingent left Hillsboro on April 20, on its way to Beardstown, where they were to rendezvous with other volunteers, and draw public arms and other things necessary.
Daniel said that he had received a letter from George Ludewick, written on April 27, saying they “got plenty to eat and plenty to feed there horses and that they had drawn publick arms” and expected to leave Beardstown on May 1. George wrote that 2,000 mounted men had gathered and were expected to go against 1,200 to 1,500 Indians.
In a letter to his parents, written on June 23, 1832, George Ludewick recounted his experiences during the war. He had served a 52-day enlistment, returning to Hillsboro on June 11, where the men were honorably discharged by their captain, Levi Boone.
He wrote that Gov. Reynolds was commander-in-chief, with their company being placed under Gen. Samuel Whitesides, the second regiment commanded by Col. Jacob Fry.
The men had traveled from Beardstown to Prophetstown, only to find the village empty. The village was burned, and they then marched north along the Fox River in pursuit of the Indians, reaching within 60 miles of the Canadian border. At the mouth of the Fox River, the soldiers were discharged.
George closed his letter with a promise to start for North Carolina the following October; after all, he had promised his family to return home. He did return, married and started a family in Cabarrus County, plowing the “old wourn out red filds.”