Today, our supply chains are global. And sometimes they break down. In the early 1800s, supply chains were a lot shorter, but the lack of mechanized transportation sometimes made it tremendously difficult to bring goods to market. Yet, a regional — edging toward national — marketplace did thrive.
“Before the great cattle drives on the Great Plains after the Civil War, think of the cowboys and the Wild West, there were the cattle and hog drovers of Central Illinois,” said McLean County Museum of History Librarian Bill Kemp.
From the early settlement period until railroads arrived in the 1850s, farmers drove livestock to a variety of markets — Cincinnati, Ohio, at first, Galena, Illinois during the lead mining boom, and eventually Chicago that took over as the meat-packing center of the Midwest.
“Before Cincinnati was known as the Queen City, its nickname was ‘Porkopolis’ because it was the pork packing, meat-packing capital of North America before,” said Kemp.
This was an era before the railroads, when it was not economical to ship grain by wagon. Transportation costs ate up any profit farmers might gain, said Kemp.
In the 1820s, Isaac Funk of McLean County brought more profitable commodities, cattle and hogs to market, which funded the purchase of massive tracts of land.
“Only three decades after the founding of McLean Count, Isaac Funk’s holdings in just the county of McLean include more than 25,000 acres, 2,000 of which are under plow. He has about 1,000 beef cattle, 200 cows with calves, 500 sheep, 240 horses and mules and 60 colts,” said Kemp.
It earned Funk a title as one of the “Cattle Kings” of Central Illinois, bestowed by the New York Daily Tribune in 1861. Funk farmed the huge acreage by using tenant farmers.
“Men like Isaac Funk, instead of transporting bulky agricultural commodities vast distances and losing money in the process, are converting that grain, primarily corn, into what? Protein!” Kemp said. “That animal, that commodity, can march itself to market.”
This process was known as “corn on the hoof.” It was profitable to take primarily cattle and hogs, but also horses, mules, and colts, to a range of markets. Quincy, Peoria, and Chicago in Illinois, and Cincinnati, Ohio and St. Louis were the big destinations for livestock.
Recollections from Funk’s son, George Washington Funk, Kemp and other historians illustrate the sometimes harsh condition of these journeys.
“My first drive to Chicago was in 1843 when I was 16. The cattle were driven in lots of 200 or 300 and hogs in droves of 800 to 1,200,” wrote George Washington Funk. “And a drove of cattle would require three men on horseback to care for them and a drove of 8-10 men on foot and three wagons beside of the drive on horseback.”
The trip depended not only on the number of livestock, but on their pace.
“The drive would commence at daylight and continue leisurely until dark, making with cattle 10 or 12 miles a day and with hogs a little less,” said George Washington Funk. “We drove slowly to allow the cattle to feed on the native grass, of which there was an abundance by the wayside.”
Kemp said ideally it could take two weeks to travel from Bloomington-Normal to Chicago with livestock in good weather. It was often longer. Funk and his workers employed goads and lures to move the animals efficiently.
“If you read accounts of cattle and hog droving in this period, there's much written about the necessity of a good whip, of a droving or driving whip, there were crueler methods to promote docility in especially hogs,” Kemp said. “So, this was not an endeavor for the faint of heart, by any means.”
Another tactic was to periodically dump feed so the hogs would follow a "river of corn." And sometimes, hogs would follow cattle on the drive.
“Because conveniently, they could eat the undigested corn that was in the manure that the cattle were depositing. You could get kind of a two-for-one there,” said Kemp.
Funk bought the cattle by the head and not by weight.
“There was no facility for weighing, but he was an exceedingly good judge of the weight, condition, and value of stock and was seldom deceived," said George Washington Funk. "The hogs were purchased by live weight. They would be gathered in a pen one by one, seized by the hind leg, breaching put under them, and the hog lifted up and weighed on a large steel yard.”
The stock was all paid for when purchased, in coin or bank bills, in an era where banks issued their own financial instruments.
“Principally those in Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri state banks which were good. This necessitated father carrying large sums of money. I do not think anyone ever attempted to rob him. He was too resolute, active, and powerful for any ordinary man to attack,” said Funk.
In the early days there were no bridges. Drovers had to ford the waterways
“I remember one time, late in the fall, we crossed the Kankakee at Beard’s crossing and the river there was about 400 yards wide and the water a foot deep with occasional holes much deeper. The hogs would follow the wagon, but the current was so swift that there was great danger that they might be swept off the ford into the deeper waters and drowned,” reminisced Funk.
Drovers had to stand in the icy water and keep the hogs in line at the ford.
“One after another of the men excused themselves on the ground that they had colds or might take cold. Then father told me to go in," wrote Funk. "When father told us boys to do anything, we did not wait for a second invitation, so I waded into the stream. The water was not deep but was icy cold. At first my feet felt like clods and I could scarcely lift them, they were so chilled. But we got the hogs over alright, and I was no worse for it. I do not know whether that was due to my youthful health and strength or to a glass of whiskey father gave to each of us that night. Whiskey, in those days, was supposed to be a sure preventative of colds and malaria.”
In one trip to Galena, Illinois, a market because of the prosperous lead mines in northwest Illinois at the time, Robert Funk — Isaac’s brother — persevered during a harsh winter through deep snow and low temperatures. When Robert Funk and his hogs crossed the frozen Illinois river, the ice wasn’t as secure as he thought.
“It is so cold, they’re [hogs] huddling for warmth. The ice sheet collapses, and he loses several hundred hogs there,” said Kemp. “He continues on his way, but the snows are so deep, he finds that wolves are feasting on the hogs that are falling behind.”
According to Kemp, Robert Funk arrived in Galena 45 days later with hogs that were roughly 100 pounds lighter than when he departed.
As the "Chicago Cattle Trail" developed over time, trips grew easier. Waysides popped up to offer services to Funk and his men.
“These were kind of inns to take care of drovers. You were able, at some points, to pen in your livestock and get them fed, and things like that be so the process became a little more civilized,” said Kemp.
It wasn’t until the mid-1860s that the packing houses in Chicago had cooled storage facilities installed. Before that, slaughtering and packing could only be done in cold months, late fall to early winter, so the meat would not spoil before it could be packed in pickling liquid.
“This was salt and sugar and potassium nitrate, so the slices or the cubes of meat would be coated in this solution, packed tightly in barrels or wooden boxes, right, and then topped with additional pickle solution, and then high grade salt,” said Kemp. “And finding high grade salt in the early meat packing era was a no easy thing by any means.”
Kemp said the livestock Funk and his family were guiding to various cities in the Midwest helped to lay the foundation for industrialization in the region. As the animals are butchered in meat-packing facilities, the process by which that happens is increasingly mechanized to be more efficient as more animals arrive.
One product helped Funk sell his hogs at a good price — rendered pork fat, or lard.
“Farmers like Isaac Funk are contributing to this industrialization of the landscape, sometimes depending on the market value, even more valuable than the meat, when it came to hogs, would be the lard,” Kemp said.
Lard oil was used for illumination in many lamps before and during the Civil War.
“Pork and meat packing become an important edge industry for the industrialization of the Midwest,” said Kemp.
McHistory is a co-production of WGLT and the McLean County Museum of History, bringing you the words and ideas of those who have gone before.
