Apart from his death, pioneer newspaperman had a full life

Bill Knight column for Mon., Tues. or Wed., Sept. 10, 11 or 12, 2018

In 1893, an ailing man at the Illinois Central Hospital for the Insane at Jacksonville died on May 5 in near anonymity. Such end-of-life hospitalizations weren’t unusual for the time. Records from that time from Iowa’s Hospital for the Insane, for example, listed more than 1,400 patients there with conditions ranging from senile dementia, “disease of the brain” and “injuries of the head” to “business anxieties,” “political excitement” and “novel-reading.”
This patient had been one of Illinois’ earliest newspapermen, a pioneer who wrote a book about the state’s early years: John Regan.
Born 200 years ago this week in Ayrshire, Scotland, the home of poet Robert Burns, he left Europe for America in 1842. The 24-year-old school teacher travelled to New Orleans, St. Louis, Burlington, Iowa, and the Mormon community of Nauvoo before trekking east across the prairie to central Illinois. He later remarked that “the voyage [was] ... like a strange dream; but here, in the depths of the unsubdued wilderness, surely is reality. The brown squirrel scampers up the tree, looking at us over his shoulder as he goes, and chattering among the branches – the woodpecker taps upon the decayed limb – the bluebird flits from tree to tree – the dew trickles – the frogs in the distant ponds hold loud concert ... but still there is the feeling of solitude and loneliness gushing into the heart from every object around.”
Regan happened upon Spoon River and followed it south where he bought 40 acres near Ellisville and built a log cabin, farmed, taught school and kept detailed notes. He and his wife Elizabeth and their four children in 1847 returned to Scotland via the Illinois River, the Great Lakes and New York, letting Regan write and publish “The Emigrant’s Guide to The Western States of America.” Possibly inspired in part by Charles Dickens’ rather negative 1842 assessment (“American Notes for General Circulation”), Regan’s book was an account not only of moving to early Illinois, but also of life on the frontier.
It “is a truly remarkable book,” recalled literary historian John Hallwas, a Western Illinois University professor emeritus, “ – beautiful in its description of the wilderness and small-town landscape, colorful in its presentation of western characters, accurate in its recreation of frontier speech, incomparable among volumes of early Midwestern sketches for its thorough reflection of the author’s character, and significant as a presentation of the emigrant’s’ experience as cultural myth.”
In it, Regan described an Illinois thunderstorm: “After the hail, the rain poured down in absolute torrents,” he wrote, “the lightning glared, the thunders bellowed, crackled, ripped, and rattled, and reverberated along the level prairie in fearful grandeur.”
Around 1853, the Regan family returned to America to settle near Knoxville, Ill., where Regan taught school, started a book bindery, dabbled in oil painting, and bought the Knoxville Journal newspaper.
Once known as an abolitionist, Regan decided to support Democratic U.S. Sen. Stephen Douglas, a political foe of anti-slavery Abraham Lincoln. That hurt his business, which folded in 1855.
In 1858, he began running newspapers in nearby Elmwood, Maquon and Yates City, taking a break to join the Union Army during the Civil War, serving with Company H of the 83rd Illinois Infantry.
He resumed newspapering in 1866 and published off and on for 13 years until his health failed and he was admitted to the Jacksonville hospital.
Buried in Elmwood, Regan’s epitaph might be in this passage from his book: “Before us lay one vast plain of verdure and flowers, without house or home, or anything to break in upon the uniformity of the scene, except the shadow of a passing cloud. To the right and left long points of timber, like capes and headlands, stretched in the blue distance – the light breeze of the morning brushing along the young grass and blue and pink flowers – the strong sunlight pouring down everywhere – and the singular silence which pervaded the scene – produced a striking effect upon the mind.
“My feelings, indeed, were of the most elated and enraptured description. I had heard of Eden and Elysium. Was it possible their beauties could surpass these?”
Regardless of his circumstance and place of death, Regan’s life was one of endless effort, hope and possibilities.