Henry Sadorus

SURNAMES: CANTERBURY, SADORUS, TITUS From History of Champaign County, Illinois with Illustrations, 1878

HENRY SADORUS. While this history was being prepared for the press, the subject of this sketch was summoned to another world. It is fitting that especial mention be made of the first permanent settler of this county. Mr. Sadorus at the time of his death had attained the extraordinary age of 95 years, lacking 8 days. He was about five feet seven inches in height and when in his prime, weighed not far from 150 pounds. His religious faith was that of a Universalist; not believing that a merciful God has in waiting for any of his creatures an unbroken series of endless torments.

In political faith Mr. S. was a Jacksonian Democrat, but voted for Peter Cooper and a greenback currency at the presidential election of 1876.

He was born in Bedford county, Pennsylvania, on the 26th of July, 1783, where he lived until the age of fifteen, when he moved with his parents to Somerset county in the same state. His early life was spent upon a farm, where he laid the foundations of vigorous health, and gained that knowledge and experience which has since been so valuable to him as a pioneer agriculturalist. He remained in Somerset county for some time, and then spent a winter or two in Canada in the employ of a distiller. Animated by a spirit of adventure, and impelled by a desire to see more of the earth, than composed

"The little world of sights and sounds,

Whose girdle was the parish bounds,"

he took a voyage down the Ohio into the mighty Mississippi and to New Orleans, where he staid eleven days beholding the wonders of the Crescent City.

He made application to become one of that famous expedition of Lewis and Clark so well known to students. Being unsuccessful in this he took passage on a vessel bound for Baltimore. The memory of his voyage, of the great gulf, the Florida Keys, the island of Cuba with its shores bathed in tropic seas, of the stormy Atlantic, and Chesapeake Bay, never faded from his mind.

From Baltimore he returned home, but soon afterward moved to Crawford county, where in 1811 he was married to Miss Mary TITUS, the mother of all his children.

During the war of 1812, he enlisted in defence of his country and served thirteen months.

In his last days he became ambitious to have a pension, that after his death his children could say their father's services for the government had been recognized and appreciated. Accordingly about two years ago D. McWilliams, Esq., of Monticello, made an application for him at the pension office, Washington, and succeeded in getting a pension allowed. Such however is the domination of red tape in the Capital, that the final papers never reached the old soldier for his signature until his last illness, and hence were never signed.

In 1818 he moved to Rush county, Indiana, where, in six years, he made two farms which he sold for good prices. With the proceeds he made his last move towards the setting sun, and on the 8th day of April 1824, he halted at what is now known as Sadorus Grove, in Sadorus township.

Around him spread the unbroken waste, and about the only visitors for several years to his lonely dwelling, were Indians of the Kickapoo and Pottawattamie tribes. He cultivated friendly relations with these, and secured by his fair dealing the entire confidence of the fierce sons of the forest and prairie.

In early times the settlers were greatly troubled by the depredations of horse thieves, and in such cases they would combine to capture and bring them to the public whipping post, which was the legal method of punishment. Mr. Sadorus and Mr. Piatt, for whom Piatt county was named, on one occasion pursued a thief for several days and nights without sleep, overtook him and returning, delivered him to the sheriff of Sangamon county, who executed on him the law in such cases made and provided.

About the year 1846, Mrs. Sadorus died, and in 1853, he was married to Mrs. Eliza CANTERBURY, who being twenty-three years younger than he, has been a support to his declining years, and now survives him.

In the prime of his life Mr. Sadorus was, like Nimrod, "a mighty hunter before the Lord." It is pleasing to know that his life of industry was richly rewarded. His land, of which he from first to last had about 1,000 acres, he deeded to his children, who paid him a regular annuity in cash, which furnished him an ample support in his comfortable homestead in the eastern suburb of Sadorus village. It is well and fitting that the name of the soldier and hunter, of the pioneer and settler, of the man of irreproachable integrity, has been rescued from decay by being given to a township of this great county which owes no small part of its present wealth and prominence to him and his early companions. He deserved well of his country. Peace be to his ashes. Until his last sickness his mind remained unimpaired.

From A Standard History of Champaign County, Illinois, J. R. Stewart, Supervising Editor, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago and New York, 1918

HENRY SADORUS. After the Fielders and Tompkinses, the next family to settle in Champaign County with any degree of permanence was that headed by Henry Sadorus, who continued to reside on the Okaw, in the southwestern part of the county, for a period of fifty-four years. He gave his name to the grove and the township, as well as the village in the extreme northeastern part of the latter. Mr. Sadorus had served as a soldier in the War of 1812, and about 1818, then thirty-five years of age, immigrated with his family to Indiana. He was a natural tradesman and money-maker, and had amassed quite a capital for the times, when he started for the Vermilion country, with his wife and six children, in 1824. The eldest of the children was a lad of fourteen, who assisted his father in managing the five yoke of steers which drew the prairie wagon toward the Okaw. It was in the fall of the year, and when he discovered an abandoned cabin on the southeast quarter of Section 1, Township 17, Range 7, he took possession of it and the family commenced housekeeping. He remained a squatter until December 11, 1834, when he entered the quarter section at the Vandalia land office. His son William, at the same time, entered the eighty-acre tract adjoining on the north, which were the first entries of land in Sadorus Township.

At the time of Mr. Sadorus' death on July 18, 1878, the Champaign County Gazette published a complete and appreciative sketch of the deceased, in which occurred the following: "The State Road from Kaskaskia having been opened and passing near his residence, Mr. Sadorus decided to erect a building for a tavern. The nearest saw mill was at Covington, Indiana, sixty miles away, but the lumber (some 50,000 feet) was hauled through unbridged sloughs and streams, and the house was built. For many years Mr. Sadorus did a thriving business. His corn was disposed of to drovers who passed his place with herds of cattle for the East, besides being fed to great numbers of hogs on his farms. His first orchard, now mostly dead, consisting of fifty Milams, procured somewhere near Terre Haute, Indiana. From them were taken innumerable sprouts, and that apple became very common in this section.

"In common with nearly all of the pioneers, Mr. Sadorus grew his own cotton, at least enough for clothing and bedding. A half-fare sufficed for this, and the custom was kept up until it became no longer profitable, the time of the mother and three daughters being so much occupied in cooking for and waiting upon the travelers that they could not weave; besides goods began to get cheaper and nearly every immigrant had some kind of cloth to dispose of. About the year 1846 Mrs. Sadorus died, and seven years later he again married, this time a Mrs. Eliza CANTERBURY of Charleston.

"Some years ago, becoming tired of attending to so much business, Mr. Sadorus divided his property among his descendants, retaining, however, an interest which enabled him to pass his declining years in ease. He died full of years, respected by all who knew him, and beloved by a large circle of friends. He was kind and hospitable to strangers, and never turned a needy man away empty-handed from his door."

Judge Cunningham adds, speaking of the old Sadorus home and Grove: "The home thus set up far from other human habitations was the abode of contentment, hospitality and reasonable thrift, in the first rude cabin which sheltered the family, as well as in the more pretentious home to which the cabin gave place in due time. The Grove was a landmark for many miles around, and the weary traveler well knew that welcome and rest always awaited him at the Sadorus home. Here Mr. Sadorus entertained his neighbors-the Buseys, Webbers and others, from Big Grove; the Piatts, Boyers and others, from down on the Sangamon; Coffeen, the enterprising general merchant, from down on the Salt Fork; the Johnsons, from Linn Grove, and the dwellers upon the Ambraw and the Okaw. He was also the counsellor and advisor of all settlers along the upper Okaw in matters pertaining to their welfare, and his judgment was implicitly relied upon."