Mining settlement found in downstate Warren

WARREN, Ill. — It was a little bit of oral history and a walk in the woods that led Kathy Hicks of Warren to the lost settlement of Babel. Her journey into the past began when she married her husband, Dean, some 40 years ago.

It was through Dean’s parents, Barney and Helen, that she learned of Babel. It was located on their farm on the 100-acre pasture that was home to their herd of beef cattle. Wolf Creek meandered through the pasture dividing it not quite evenly in half.

The lead mines at the time of Babel dotted the whole hillside on the west side of the creek. The settlement was located at the southeast side.

“Basically, it was a lead mining settlement nestled in the hillside,” Hicks said. “When we first came here, there were indentations that indicated basements.”

Local historian Dr. Daryl Watson, retired director of the Galena History Museum, said little is known about the site.

“I grew up around here. For years I heard stories there were lead mines; anything beyond that, no details,” Watson said.

Hicks has a handwritten, undated and unsigned paper that she thinks may have been written by Helen. Portions of the note read: “Lead mining was the leading industry south of Warren in 1851, the central point of which was Babel. ... Alexander Burnett, an early pioneer of Warren, did some mining for lead in Babel at one time. A schoolteacher died of cholera during the cholera epidemic of 1854. ... The rock house and barn shown on the map are still standing.

The old road is visible in places yet and pits remain to show where the houses were built approximately 130 years ago!”

The Babel and Pepoon mines are mentioned in the “History of JoDaviess County 1878.” It said that the chief mines “Babel” and “Pepoon” were profitable at one time but now there was not much mineral being raised. The entry was dated 1858. The Pepoon mine was named after the Pepoon family who lived at the top of the hill where the mines were located. Barney’s mother was a Pepoon.

The evidence of those mines is present today as “sucker holes.” They dot the steep hillside.

“As far as I understand it, they mined straight down and they would `play out a hole,’ go to the next one up the hill, and they would fill the other one with the dirt and stuff from the other (new) one. They would keep going up the hill,” Hicks said. “We had two deep holes left. The rest are kind of `pocks’ in the side of the hill.”

Watson added, “The people came from New England, New York and Pennsylvania. They would try any lead mining they could. It was their cash crop and cash money. Money was very tight, but very quickly they turned to farming. Most of the people in the Warren area were farmers. They might do some mining at the same time. They were farming. It was their main occupation.”

The miners built a dam to run water down a wooden sluice. The sluice ran along the bottom of the hill and eventually emptied into the creek to the south. Kathy and Dean found it.

“We found the little end of the sluice box coming out of the dirt from the ground into the creek,” Hicks said. “It was probably about a foot wide with sides about six to eight inches high. It was just a “U” shaped thing ... it has since disappeared.

“They had to clean the ore because it would be covered in clay. They would have to clean it off before they could smelt it.”

Smelting involved heating the lead between layers of wood. It was melted down and poured into molds.

When Hicks first started walking the pasture she noticed what seemed to be stagecoach trails among the lead mines. One trail appeared to head to Warren. The other trail may have gone to Nora through Babel.

Watson said that was possible. The early trails were very numerous and changed frequently. “They went all over the place,” he added.

Time, cattle, underbrush and trees have all but obliterated the trails, but Hicks can find them.

The town of Babel was just a clear spot on the hillside. Even the basement indentations are gone. Watson said that when the railroad went through the county in 1854, people left towns like Babel. That is when Warren, Apple River and Scales Mound really grew. The railroad was everything.

Kathy always enjoyed walking in the woods that grew over the lead mines.

“I was walking the stagecoach trail and found this `Henney Buggy Company, Freeport, ILL, Trade Buggy’ plate. I found it on the trail. For some reason, rain or something washed the dirt away and I picked it up. It was just lying there after all that time.”

There is not much written about the lost settlement of Babel.

“(We have the) oral history, we know it’s there. We’ve seen remnants of it,” Hicks said.