USA > Illinois > Henry County > History of Henry county, Illinois : it's taxpayers and voters, 1877 > Part 1
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T
LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
977.338 K51h cop. 2
Ill. Hist. Survey
6.
cari.
Bro i
1, 1 571.
SHABBONA.
THE HISTORY
OF
: H ENRY
COUNTY,
ILLINOIS,
f
ITS. TAX- PAYERS AND VOTERS;
CONTAINING, ALSO, A
BIOGRAPHICAL DIRECTORY ; A CONDENSED HISTORY OF THE STATE ; MAP OF THE COUNTY ; A BUSINESS DIRECTORY : AN ABSTRACT OF EVERY-DAY LAWS; WAR RECORD OF HENRY COUNTY ; OFFICERS OF SOCIETIES, LODGES, ETC., ETC.
CHICAGO: H. F. KETT. & CO., 15 LAKESIDE BUILDING.
1877.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by H. F. KETT & CO., In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
.
977,338 K251h cap.2
PREFACE.
BUT few can realize the task involved in the publication of a work of this kind. We have to contend against ignorance, prejudice and selfishness. Ignorance of some people as to our objects, many refusing to give their names, for fear they will be used for some swindling purpose; or their politics, lest it be used to their discredit; or how much property they own, fearing it is to increase their taxes. Prejudice of people who have subscribed through agents for publications, and not having received what they expected, have forever thereafter sworn war- fare against all agents, without discriminating, or taking into consideration the absolute necessity of employing men under certain circumstances as the media between publisher and people. Selfishness by citizens who expect to have, pub- lished, gratuitously, every thing they see fit to send us, which usually is of a per- sonal nature, or not relevant matter, and if published would be of no general interest, therefore we deem best to suppress it, thereby receiving their outspoken enmity. For this work we do not claim perfection ; that would be an impossi- bility. Most townships have been gone over thoroughly, but still there are undoubtedly errors, mostly in spelling names and in dates. We have several cases in Henry County where members of the same family spell their names in different ways, and a number of cases where the dates of births, of marriages, or when they came into the county, were improbable, and when brought to their notice, they had made a mistake generally of ten years in calculation. We give our agents the most positive instructions to be especially careful in getting names and dates, but ofttimes men are indifferent in giving required information, and when met on the road, at the thrashing machine, or in the rain or cold, the information is given hurriedly or carelessly, and our agents are obliged to put it down as given them, and when copied, mistakes necessarily occur.
We have endeavored to get the names of all tax-payers and voters. We have about 8,300 names, the vote being about 5,500, which shows we could not have missed many. In our History of the County we have endeavored to give an interesting, condensed and correct sketch. Our History of Illinois will give the reader some interesting and valuable historical facts. Our Laws should be carefully read by every business man and farmer; they contain invaluable infor- mation. In fact we have toiled long and at great expense, and have far exceeded our promises to make every thing in these pages interesting and valuable, and all you could expect or wish, and in your criticisms, please to bear in mind that in gathering, compiling and publishing a volume of this kind, perfection would be an impossibility.
We wish to extend our sincere and warmest thanks to the citizens of Henry County for their kind treatment, and for assistance rendered us in furnishing information for this work. They are too numerous to here name, but to the press and early settlers in particular we are grateful for their labors in aiding us to gather the material for the History of the County. The Cambridge Chronicle furnished us with its files of 1858 and 1859, which contained a series of articles by Dr. A. A. Dunn, its editor, on the early settlement of the county, and from them we have taken much of our early History.
H. F. KETT & Co.
CONTENTS.
MISCELLANEOUS.
PAGE.
PAGE.
Interest Table ..
82
Population and Area of the U. S .. 83
Population of Prlocipai Clties in the World. ... 83 Population of Illinols ... .84 & 85
Statement .
.549
Too Lates and Changes
.590
Vote of Henry County. .550
HISTORICAL.
PAGE.
History of Illinois .. 13
History of Henry Co .. .116
Morristown Colony. .135 Alpha .540
Wethersfield Colony. 137
Cambridge. 177
Nekoma ... 541
Cleveland. .531
Orion ..
521
Geneseo Colony 507
County Courts ..
151
Sirabbona.
152
History of Towns :
Atkinson. 530
Annawan 528
TOWNSHIP DIRECTORY.
l'AGE.
PAGE.
Cornwail.
225
Munson
311
Edford.
.275
Oxford
332
Atkinson
.266 Galva
.347
Osco. 467
Aiba ... .237
Geneseo.
186
Pheulx. 231
Burns
.407
Cambridge.
.282
Clover ..
.326
Colona ..
.256
Loraine.
.320
Yorktowu. .249
BUSINESS DIRECTORY.
The Business Directory follows the townslilps In which they are located.
ABSTRACT OF ILLINOIS STATE LAWS.
PAGE.
PAGE.
PAGE.
Bllis of exchange and promis-
Adoption of children.
54
Form of Articles of . greement 67
sory notes ...
45
Surveyors and surveys
54
Clerk for Ne vlees ......
67
Interest.
45
Roads
55
Blils of Sale
68
Descent
45
Drainage 57
. 4
Bonds
68
Wilis and estates.
46
Paupers
58
Chattel Mortgage ... ...
69
Taxes
48
Fences.
60
Lease of Bulldings. . ..
71
Jurisdiction of Courts.
48
Damage from Trespass
61
Landlord's Agreement.
72
Limitation of action
49
Married women.
49
65
Tenant's Notice to Quit 73
Exemptlon fron forced sale.
50
Church Organizatlon.
79
Real Estate Mortgage to Secure Money 73
Deeds and Mortgages.
51
Game ...
52
Form of Blank Note ..
66
Qult Clalin Deed ..
75
Welgbts and measures.
5%
Millers ..
53
66
Form of Wlil.
77
Marks and brands
52
44
Bills of Purchase.
66
Codlell ..
79
PORTRAITS.
PAGE.
PAGE.
Allan James M.
103
Hurd Lewis ..
.493
Stickney Isaac.
.333
Ayres T. G ..
.463
HInman JJ. S.
303
Sanngnist P. M.
.453
BIlsh Sylvester.
93
Henderson Thomas G.
563
Shearer Lewis. 203
.
Johnson Olof.
.173
Sawyer J. A ... .133
Bronson E. V.
.413
Kemerling Jacob
.403
Bassett C ....
423
Kiner H. L.
223
Smlthe Geo. C. 233
263
Beli J. D.
.343
Willard J. F.
483
Beveridge I'. H.
Little R. A.
.363
Wilber R. M. 353
Whitney C. N. 253
373
Gouid A ...
113
Page O. E .. 183
293
Ilowe J. H
573
Ridenonr J. B .. .393
Wilkinson L. G.
313
Howard Sulllvan
443
Seaton B. W ..
243
Wilson Geo. F. 11.
.283
Harrington R
.213
HENRY COUNTY VOLUNTEERS.
PAGE.
l'AGE.
PAGE.
Graham's Ind. Cav. Co
.585
33d Infantry
.580
86th Infantry.
.586
4tli Cavalry.
585
34th
.4
585
89th
7th
.585
37tl
.583
102d
. .
.582
9th
574
42d
44
124th
572
9th Infantry.
.584
57th
4.
.577
134tlı 4 4
584
14thì
.583
65tli
4 .
583 & 585 ;
139th
44
578
17th
580
69tl
66
579
148th
44
584
18th
. .
.583
75th
..
586
151st
..
..
582
19th
. .
579
83đ
.....
580 | Miscellaneous ...
585
CHURCHES OF HENRY CO. not mentioned in Town Ilistories.
Page 541
.
.582
14th
44
583
43d
.. 579
112th
44
.565
Blackburn John.
143
Kluzle R. A ...
.323
Little Henry G.
433
Crawford Andrew
123
Little A. B ...
.383
Dunham C.
193
Perry Alfred W
163
Warner W. W
Warranty Deed. 74
Order
Release ..
76
Recelpt. .
.388
Western ... .370
562
Kewanee. 155
PAGE.
PAGE.
History of Towns :
Ilstory of Towns :
Andover. 524
Lynn .. .562
Morristown 130
Bishop HIII Colony .. 145
Colona
.540
Ophelm
539
Dayton .. .539
Osco ...
532
Geneseo. 507
Oakley.
539
Galva .. 168
Uiah ..
Woodhuli 537
PAGE.
Andover.
.452
Annawan
.396
49
Landlord and Tenant ..
61
Tenant's
Llens ..
64
Notice Tenant to Quit ..
Definition of Commercial Terms
Estrays ..
51
Suggestion to Persons purchas- Ing Books by Subscription ...
80
Wethersfield 479
Kewanee .415
Weller ... 490
Lynn ....
82
County Schools .. .. 547 Electors of President and Vice-
President, 1876 100 Geology of Henry County. .101
Henry Co. Agricultural Society .. 555
Henry Co. Infirmary. 545
PAGE.
· Agriculturai Statistics of Henry County .. .138 Miscellaneous Table ... ... ... Map of Henry County ... Front Page.
Population of Henry County ..... 504 82 Population of the United States .. Population of Fifty Principal Citles. 82
Constitution of United States .... 86 County Officers. .548 Offielals of Socletles, Lodges, etc.552 Old Settlers' Meeting ..... .. 556 Rallroads .... .... 547 Real and Personal Property
C
PAGE.
Blish C. C.
153
Shabbona ... Title Page
Tenney R. A ..
.243
Welton F. G ....
.
.581
....
...
. 4
4 4
County Courts.
Hanna
241
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1
HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
The name of this beautiful Prairie State is derived from Illine, a Delaware word signifying Superior Men. It has a French termination, and is a symbol of how the two races-the French and the Indians --- were intermixed during the early history of the country.
The appellation was no doubt well applied to the primitive inliabit- ants of the soil whose prowess in savage warfare long withstood the combined attacks of the fierce Iroquois on the one side, and the no less savage and relentless Sacs and Foxes on the other. The Illinois were once a powerful confederacy, occupying the most beautiful and fertile region in the great Valley of the Mississippi, which their enemies coveted and struggled long and hard to wrest from them. By the fortunes of war they were diminished in numbers, and finally destroyed. "Starved Rock," on the Illinois River, according to tradition, commemorates their last tragedy, where, it is said, the entire tribe starved rather than sur- render.
EARLY DISCOVERIES.
The first European discoveries in Illinois date back over two hun- dred years. They are a part of that movement which, from the begin- ning to the middle of the seventeenth century, brought the French Canadian missionaries and fur traders into the Valley of the Mississippi, and which, at a later period, established the civil and ecclesiastical authority of France from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the foot-hills of the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains.
The great river of the West had been discovered by DeSoto, the Spanish conqueror of Florida, three quarters of a century before the Frenchi founded Quebec in 1608, but the Spanish left the country a wil- derness, without further exploration or settlement within its borders, in which condition it remained until the Mississippi was discovered by the agents of the French Canadian government, Joliet and Marquette, in 1673. These renowned explorers were not the first white visitors to Illinois. In 1671-two years in advance of them-came Nicholas Perrot to Chicago. He had been sent by Talon as an agent of the Canadian government to
2
14
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
call a great peace convention of Western Indians at Green Bay, prepara- tory to the movement for the discovery of the Mississippi. It was deemed a good stroke of policy to secure, as far as possible, the friend- ship and co-operation of the Indians, far and near, before venturing upon an enterprise which their hostility might reuder disastrous, and which their friendship and assistance would do so much to make successful ; and to this end Perrot was sent to call together in council the tribes throughout the Northwest, and to promise them the commerce and pro- tection of the French government. He accordingly arrived at Green Bay in 1671, and procuring an escort of Pottawattamies, proceeded in a bark canoc upon a visit to the Miamis, at Chicago. Perrot was there- fore the first European to set foot upon the soil of Illinois.
Still there werc others before Marquette. In 1672, the Jesuit mis- sionaries, Fathers Claude Allouez and Claude Dablon, bore the standard of the Cross from their mission at Green Bay through western Wisconsin and northern Illinois, visiting the Foxes on Fox River, and the Masquo- tines and Kickapoos at the mouth of the Milwaukee. These missionaries penetrated on the route afterwards followed by Marquette as far as the Kickapoo village at the head of Lake Winnebago, where Marquette, in his journey, secured guides across the portage to the Wisconsin.
The oft-repeated story of Marquette and Joliet is well known. They were the agents employed by the Canadian government to discover the Mississippi. Marquette was a native of France, born in 1637, a Jesuit priest by education, and a man of simple faith and of great zeal and devotion in extending the Roman Catholic religion among the Indians. Arriving in Canada in 1666, he was sent as a missionary to the far Northwest, and, in 1668, founded a mission at Sault Ste. Marie. The following year he moved to La Pointe, in Lake Superior, where he instructed a branch of the Hurons till 1670, when he removed south, and founded the mission at St. Ignace, on the Straits of Mackinaw. Here he remained, devoting a portion of his time to the study of the Illinois language under a native teacher who had accompanied him to the mission from La Pointe, till he was joined by Joliet in the Spring of 1673. By the way of Green Bay and the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, they entered the Mississippi, which they explored to the mouth of the Arkansas, and returned by the way of the Illinois and Chicago Rivers to Lake Michigan.
On his way up the Illinois, Marquette visited the great village of the Kaskaskias, near what is now Utica, in the county of LaSalle. The following year he returned and established among them the mission of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, which was the first Jesuit mission founded in Illinois and in the Mississippi Valley. The interveuing winter he had spent in a hut which his companions erected on the Chicago River, a few leagues from its mouth. The founding of this mission was the last
15
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
act of Marquette's life. He died in Michigan, on his way back to Green Bay, May 18, 1675.
FIRST FRENCH OCCUPATION.
The first French occupation of the territory now embraced in Illi- nois was effected by LaSalle in 1680, seven years after the time of Mar- quette and Joliet. LaSalle, having constructed a vessel, the " Griffin," above the falls of Niagara, which he sailed to Green Bay, and having passed thence in canoes to the mouth of the St. Joseph River, by which and the Kankakee he reached the Illinois, in January, 1680, erected Fort Crevecœur, at the lower end of Peoria Lake, where the city of Peoria is now situated. The place where this ancient fort stood may still be seen just below the outlet of Peoria Lake. It was destined, however, to a temporary existence. From this point, LaSalle determined to descend the Mississippi to its mouth, but did not accomplish this purpose till two years later-in 1682. Returning to Fort Frontenac for the purpose of getting materials with which to rig his vessel, he left the fort in charge of Touti, his lieutenant, who during his absence was driven off by the Iro- quois Indians. These savages had made a raid upon the settlement of the Illinois, and had left nothing in their track but ruin and desolation. Mr. Davidson, in his History of Illinois, gives the following graphic account of the picture that met the eyes of LaSalle and his companions on their return :
" At the great town of the Illinois they were appalled at the scene which opened to their view. No hunter appeared to break its death-like silence with a salutatory whoop ot welcome. The plain on which the town had stood was now strewn with charred fragments of lodges, which had so recently swarmned with savage life and hilarity. To render more hideous the picture of desolation, large numbers of skulls had been placed on the upper extremities of lodge-poles which had escaped the devouring flames. In the midst of these horrors was the rude fort of the spoilers, rendered frightful by the same ghastly relics. A near approach showed that the graves had been robbed of their bodies, and swarms of buzzards were discovered glutting their loathsome stomachs on the reeking corruption. To complete the work of destruction, the growing corn of the village had been cut down and burned, while the pits containing the products of previous years, had been rifled and their contents scattered with wanton waste. It was evident the suspected blow of the Iroquois had fallen with relentless fury."
Touti had escaped LaSalle knew not whither. Passing down the lake in search of him and his men, LaSalle discovered that the fort had been destroyed, but the vessel which he had partly constructed was still
16
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
on the stocks and but slightly injured. After further fruitless search, failing to find Touti, he fastened to a tree a painting representing himself and party sitting in a canoe and bearing a pipe of peace, and to the paint- ing attached a letter addressed to Touti.
Touti had escaped, and, after untold privations, taken shelter among the Pottawattamies near Green Bay. These were friendly to the French. One of their old chiefs used to say, " There were but three great cap- tains in the world, himself, Touti and LaSalle."
GENIUS OF LASALLE.
We must now return to LaSalle, whose exploits stand out in such bold relief. He was born in Rouen, France, in 1643. His father was wealthy, but he renounced his patrimony on entering a college of the Jesuits, from which he separated and came to Canada a poor man in 1666. The pricsts of St. Sulpice, among whom he had a brother, were then the proprictors of Montreal, the nucleus of which was a seminary or con- vent founded by that order. The Superior granted to LaSalle a large tract of land at LaChine, where he established himself in the fur trade. He was a man of daring genius, and outstripped all his competitors in exploits of travel and commerce with the Indians. In 1669, he visited the headquarters of the great Iroquois Confederacy, at Onondaga, in the heart of New York, and, obtaining guides, explored the Ohio River to the falls at Louisville.
In order to understand the genius of LaSalle, it must be remembered that for many years prior to his time the missionaries and traders were obliged to make their way to the Northwest by the Ottawa River (of Canada) on account of the fierce hostility of the Iroquois along the lower lakes and Niagara River, which entirely closed this latter route to the Upper Lakes. They carried on their commerce chiefly by canocs, pad- dling them through the Ottawa to Lake Nipissing, carrying them across the portage to French River, and descending that to Lake Huron. This being the route by which they reached the Northwest, accounts for the fact that all the earliest Jesuit missions were established in the neighbor- hood of the Upper Lakes. LaSalle conceived the grand idea of opening the route by Niagara River and the Lower Lakes to Canadian commerce by sail vessels, connecting it with the navigation of the Mississippi, and thus opening a magnificent water communication from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. This truly grand and comprehensive purpose seems to have animated him in all his wonderful achievements and the matchless difficulties and hardships he surmounted. As the first step in the accomplishment of this object he established himself on Lake Ontario, and built and garrisoned Fort Frontenac, the site of the present
:
17
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
city of Kingston, Canada. Here he obtained a grant of land from the French crown and a body of troops by which he beat back the invading Iroquois and cleared the passage to Niagara Falls. Having by this inas- terly stroke made it safc to attempt a hitherto untricd expedition, his next step, as we have seen, was to advance to the Falls with all his outfit for building a ship with which to sail the lakes. He was success- ful in this undertaking, though his ultimate purpose was defeated by a strange combination of untoward circumstances. The Jesuits evidently hated LaSalle and plotted against him, because he had abandoned them and co-operated with a rival order. The fur traders were also jealous of his superior success in opening new channels of commerce. At LaChine he had taken the trade of Lake Ontario, which but for his presence there would have gone to Quebec. While they were plodding with their bark canoes through the Ottawa he was constructing sailing vessels to com- mand the trade of the lakes and the Mississippi. These great plans excited the jealousy and envy of the small traders, introduced treason and revolt into the ranks of his own companions, and finally led to the foul assassination by which. his great achievements were prematurely ended.
In 1682, LaSalle, having completed his vessel at Peoria, descended the Mississippi to its confluence with the Gulf of Mexico. Erecting a standard on which he inscribed the arms of France, he took formal pos- session of the whole valley of the mighty river, in the name of Louis XIV., then reigning, in honor of whom he named the country LOUISIANA.
LaSalle then went to France, was appointed Governor, and returned with a fleet and immigrants, for the purpose of planting a colony in Illi- nois. They arrived in due time in the Gulf of Mexico, but failing to find the mouth of the Mississippi, up which LaSalle intended to sail, his supply ship, with the immigrants, was driven ashore and wrecked on Matagorda Bay. With the fragments of the vessel he constructed a stockade and rude huts on the shore for the protection of the immigrants, calling the post Fort St. Louis. He then made a trip into New Mexico, in search of silver mines, but, meeting with disappointment, returned to find his little colony reduced to forty souls. He then resolved to travel on foot to Illinois, and, starting with his companions, had reached the valley of the Colorado, near the mouth of Trinity river, when he was shot by one of his men. This occurred on the 19th of March, 1687.
Dr. J. W. Foster remarks of him : " Thus fell, not far from the banks of the Trinity, Robert Cavalier de la Salle, one of the grandest charac- ters that ever figured in American history-a man capable of originating the vastest schemes, and endowed with a will and a judgment capable of carrying them to successful results. Had ample facilities been placed by the King of France at his disposal, the result of the colonization of this continent might have been far different from what we now behold."
18
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
EARLY SETTLEMENTS.
A temporary settlement was made at Fort St. Louis, or the old Kas- kaskia village, on the Illinois River, in what is now LaSalle County, in 1682. In 1690, this was removed, with the mission connected with it, to Kaskaskia, on the river of that name, emptying into the lower Mississippi in St. Clair County. Cahokia was settled about the same time, or at least, both of these settlements began in the year 1690, though it is now pretty well settled that Cahokia is the older placc, and ranks as the oldest permanent settlement in Illinois, as well as in the Mississippi Valley. The reason for the removal of the old Kaskaskia settlement and mission, was probably because the dangerous and difficult route by Lake Michigan and the Chicago portage had been almost abandoned, and travelers and traders passed down and up the Mississippi by the Fox and Wisconsin River route. They removed to the vicinity of the Mississippi in order to be in the line of travel from Canada to Louisiana, that is, the lower part of it, for it was all Louisiana then south of the lakes.
During the period of French rule in Louisiana, the population prob- ably never exceeded ten thousand, including whites and blacks. Within that portion of it now included in Indiana, trading posts were established at the principal Miami villages which stood on the head waters of the Maumee, the Wea villages situated at Ouiatenon, on the Wabash, and the Piankeshaw villages at Post Vincennes ; all of which were probably visited by French traders and missionaries before the close of the seven- teenth century.
In the vast territory claimed by the French, many settlements of considerable importance had sprung up. Biloxi, on Mobile Bay, had been founded by D'Iberville, in 1699; Antoine de Lamotte Cadillac had founded Detroit in 1701; and New Orleans had been founded by Bien- ville, under the auspices of the Mississippi Company, in 1718. In Illi- nois also, considerable settlements had been made, so that in 1730 they embraced one hundred and forty French families, about six hundred " con- verted Indians," and many traders and voyageurs. In that portion of the country, on the east side of the Mississippi, there were five distinct set- tlements, with their respective villages, viz .: Cahokia, near the mouth of Cahokia Creek and about five miles below the present city of St. Louis ; St. Philip, about forty-five miles below Cahokia, and four miles above Fort Chartres; Fort Chartres, twelve miles above Kaskaskia ; Kaskaskia, situated on tlie Kaskaskia River, five miles above its conflu- ence with the Mississippi ; and Prairie du Rocher, near. Fort Chartres. To these must be added St. Genevieve and St. Louis, on the west side of the Mississippi. These, with the exception of St. Louis, are among
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