PRIMM, JOHN
, was born July 25, 1780, in Stafford county, Va. When a young man he went to what became St. Clair county, Ill., and was there married, Oct. 10, 1809, to Ruth Cox, who was born March 9, 1783, in Delaware, and came to Monroe county, Ill., with her parents in 1808. They had five children in Monroe county, and moved to Sangamon county, arriving May 1, 1820, in what is now Fancy Creek township, where two children were born. Of their seven children--ELIZABETH, born Oct. 14, 1810, married in 1828, in Sangamon county, to Christopher Hussey. See his name. He died, and she married Wm. B. Preston. They had six children. Mr. Preston died, and the widow married Lyman Olds. She died in Middletown, Logan county, in 1869 or '70.
MARY, born Sept., 1812, married in Sangamon county, Nov. 30, 1829, to Isaac Preston. They had six children, and Mr. Preston died, and she married Felix Green. He died, and she married David Lee, had one child, and Mr. Lee died. She lives in Logan county, Illinois.
ELISHA, been Oct. 24, 1814, in Monroe county, Ill., married in Sangamon county, Sept. 19, 1837, to Lucinda C. Glascock. She was born August 12, 1819, in Fauquier county, Va. They have one child, SUSAN, who married Wm. L. Rankin, being his second wife. They have five children, ANNIE M., GEORGE M., WILLIAM, LEWIS T. and LUCINDA, and live in Menard county, near Athens, Ill. Elisha Primm and his wife reside in Menard county, three miles southwest of Cantrall, Sangamon county, Illinois.
ENOCH, born August 2, 1816, in that part of Monroe which is now part of St. Clair county, came to Sangamon county with his parents. He was married May 23, 1839, to Lucinda (???). They had fourteen children; two died under five years. MARY H. lives with her parents. BENJAMIN F. married Martha Crowder. They have two children, and live near Longton, Elk county, Kansas. EM??LY J. married William T. Hutchinson. They have three children, and live in ??etersburg, Ill. MARGARET E. married D. A. Rankin, has three children, and lives at Tallula, Illinois. FRANCES ??. married H. H. Irwin, had one child, and Mrs. Frances E. Irwin died Nov. 12, 1873. Mr. Irwin lives in Menard county, Ill. AMANDA lives with her parents. ROBERT L. died Dec. 4, 1873. JOHN Q., ELVIRA E., THEOPHILUS B. and WILLIE reside with their father. Mrs. Lucinda R. Primm died March 4, 1874, and Enoch Primm resides in Menard county, northeast of Pleasant Plains, Illinois.
SUSAN, born Sept., 1818, married Feb. 24, 1848, to James Henton; have seven or eight children, and live in Kansas.
JOHN H., born June 15, 1820, married Jan., 1848, to Mary A. King, have three children, and reside in Menard county, four miles southwest of Cantrall, Illinois.
ELIJAH S., born Oct. 27, 1822, in Sangamon county, married August 20, 1844, in McLean county, to Mary E. Glascock. They had two children,
JOSEPH H. died Jan. 30, 1863, in his eighteenth year. ELIJAH S., Jun., born June 20, 1847, married April 5, 1866, to Alice M. Myers, who was born Oct. 8, 1846, in Licking county, Ohio. They have three children, JOSEPH T., JAMES B., and FREDERICK, and live in Menard county, within two hundred yards of the Sangamon line, and two and a half miles southwest of Cantrall, Ill. Elijah S. Primm died Feb. 25, 1847, three months before the birth of his son, of the same name. His widow married Oct. 3, 1850, to James Driskell. They had three children. MARGARET A. married William F. Lake. See his name. They have one child, OLIVE MAY, and reside in Logan county. JAMES E. lives with his uncle, Thomas Glascock, and MARY L., with her aunt, Lucinda C. Primm. Mrs. Mary E. Driskell died April 20, 1858, and James Driskell died Nov., 1862.
John Primm died August 9, 1848, where he settled in 1820, and his widow died Feb. 3, 1856, at the house of her son, Elisha.
When Elisha Primm was married, his wife remembers that they bought a feather bed for seventy-five cents per pound, and paid for it by selling corn at ten cents per bushel. They sold bacon for three cents per pound, and at the same time bought calico for forty cents per yard. More recently they sold bacon for forty cents per pound. Mr. Primm has sold pork, neatly dressed, in Springfield, for one dollar and fifty cents per one hundred pounds, and has sold the some quality at fourteen dollars per hundred.
Elisha Primm says that his father built a cotton gin in 1822. He says that from the time the first settlers came into the county until the winter of the "deep snow," 1830 and '31, this was as good a cotton country as Georgia. He says that this was attested by men familiar with cotton growing in the Southern States. Elisha attended the gin built by his father, which was run by horse power. The people brought cotton to be ginned, from all distances up to twenty miles. Sometimes it would accumulate on his hands until he would have as much as 3,000 pounds. The price for ginning was a toll of one pound in every eight, after the cotton was ginned. It sold from 12 to 16 2/3 cents per pound, and occasionally higher. After the "deep snow" the seasons appeared to shorten, and cotton was generally bitten by the frost before it had time to mature, and cotton raising was finally abandoned. It seemed as though the seasons were overruled so as to be adapted to the wants of the pioneer settlers, when there was no other way
for them to be supplied with clothing, but when roads were opened and capital came in, bringing merchandise, the seasons gravitated back to their normal condition.