The corn whisky
of Illinois was an article of commerce which found its way to many
markets. Although it was sold at a low price at home, it became much
more valuable after it had been exported to England or France, and
had undergone scientific treatment by men of ability. The corn used
in its manufacture was exceedingly cheap, as may be imagined when
corn-fed pork was, in the winter of '49, offered for sale in Joliet
at one cent per pound. After the poison of the prairies had been
exported to Europe, a new flavour was imparted to it, and it became
Cognac, or the best Irish or Scotch whisky.
Wilkins halted his team and went into the whisky-mill, where the
owner, Robinson, was throwing charcoal into the furnace under his
boiler with a long-handled shovel. He was an enterprising Englishman
who was wooing the smiles of fortune with better prospects of success
than the slow, hard-working farmer. I had seen him first
in West Joliet in '49, when he was travelling around buying corn for
his distillery. He was a handsome man, about thirty years of age,
five feet ten inches in height, had been well educated, was quite
able to hold his own among the men of the West, and accommodated
himself to their manners and habits.
There were three other farmers present, and their talk drifted from
one thing to another until it at last settled on the question of the
relative advantages of life in England and the States.
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