The Story of An Ordinary Man (by Himself)

 

Illinois Central Railroad Water Tower - built in 1885 (Kinmundy, IL)

This manuscript has been in my family a long time. I remember my dad reading it carefully when I was youngster. It lived on a bookshelf in the living room near the television set. It consists of fewer than 150 pages of single-spaced typewritten pages with columns 3 inches wide. The book is assembled into seven chapters labeled with Roman numerals (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, and VII). Only the final chapter has a title “OFF TO COLLEGE” whereas the other chapters begin with carefully selected quotes from literature (Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell etc.)

A copy of the book has been in my possession for years. My father was keen on the insights it offered into the family history which traced back to roots in Kinmundy, Illinois on his father’s side of the Morgan family. The ordinary man is John Morgan who (if my dad’s notes are accurate) is the fourth in birth order among nine children. My father’s father (the author’s younger brother) is fifth in birth order. (That would be my father’s grandfather Wesley Harmon Morgan). So indeed this is an account that gives some insight into life in Kinmundy, Illinois from the author’s first year 1858 through his graduation from college around 1885 from Valpraiso University in Indiana.(1)  Reflection in later chapters refer to looking back on life in Kinmundy as late as 1928 (which might suggest that at least part of the book was written when he was in his sixties.

We visited Kinmundy on a family trip with dad and mom on a road trip from the Cleveland suburb of Lakewood, Ohio. I’m sure it seemed like a good idea to go motoring in the early 1960s but when you’re a kid behaving in a car for 500 miles can be a challenge. Dad was nostalgic about the place so we drove by the center of town and by local newspaper office of the Kinmundy Express (2).  Dad pointed to where the old bandstand used to be. Mom read a brochure with a tone of mockery, “Take Kinmundy our city fair. No fog. No smog, Just clean fresh air.” (Mom clearly did not share the warm nostalgia that Dad did).

The seven chapter book by John Morgan, the brother of my Great Grandfather Wesley Harmon Morgan is well written and reads more like a casual series of memories of growing up in this small community about halfway between Vandalia and Salem, Illinois.  So I read John Morgan, my Great Grand-Unlce’s chapters with interest. The book is well crafted and a romantic appreciation of nature (trees, animals, weather etc.). It also provides insight into the activities of such a community (in a schoolroom, in the woods, hunting, fishing, socialization, sketches of citizens of the place etc.) The colorful life and times of Kinmundy in this book illustrate what it must have been like to be a boy here between 1858-1885;  It reads a bit like Mark Twain without the stories of central characters like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Note that Twain’s characters are set in 1840s Missouri along the Mississippi River.

Kinmundy population is under 800 today but was closer to 1100 in the 1880s.  Kinmundy has a total area of 1.32 square miles (3.42 km²), of which 1.05 square miles (2.72 km²) (or 79.55%) is land and 0.27 square miles (0.70 km²) (or 20.45%) is water. The origins of the Town of Kinmundy are rooted in the expansion of the railroads in Southern Illinois, with the first significant economic influence being construction work on the Chicago branch of the Illinois Central Railroad In April 1857, the town was initially laid out east of the railroad, in 15 blocks of varying sizes, and later, incorporated as a city in 1867

note 1: Valpraiso originally opened in the 1850s and was one of the first co-educations colleges in the country. The Civil War caused enough hardship for the school to close for a period but with help from Lutheran charity was able to resume after 1873. The author says he took a stage to a train to travel to college about 250 miles away from Kinmundy. 

note 2: The Kinmundy Express office is now the location of the Kinmundy Historical Society. Their website includes “gleanings” from the newspaper going bsck to the 1880s.  www.kinmundyhistoricalsociety.org).