USA > Illinois > Kendall County > History of Kendall county, Illinois, from the earliest discoveries to the present time > Part 1
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UNIV ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT CHAMPAIGN-URBANA
ILLINOIS HISTORICAL SURVEY
[GEO. HOLLENBACK'S FIRST HOUSE, Fox TOWNSHIP, 1831. ]
THE OLD LOG CABIN.
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BERNHARDCCO. C
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HISTORY
-OF-
KENDALL COUNTY
ILLINOIS,
FROM THE
Earliest Discoveries to the Present Time,
- BY -
REV. E. W. HICKS. Author of " Life of Jesus, for Young People."
AURORA, ILL. : KNICKERBOCKER & HODDER, Steam Printers and Blank Book Makers, Nos. 24, 26 & 28 Broadway, 1877.
2
DEDICATION.
To the children and grandchildren of our pioneers this book is respectfully dedicated. Forgetting their faults, may they remember their heroism, copy their hospitality, and practice their virtues, is the heartfelt prayer of THE AUTHOR.
977.326
H52
BORTE
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I-THE MOUND BUILDERS .- Geologic ages. Terrace epoch. Wild animals. Kendall county mounds. Ancient pottery. An extinct race.
CHAPTER II-INDIANS AND FRENCH MISSIONARIES .- Origin of the Indians. Pottawatomies. First missionaries. The Mississippi. Marquette.
CHAPTER III-EXPLORATIONS OF LASALLE .- Exploring Illinois. Troubles. Starved Rock. Tonti. Lonely travels. Death of LaSalle.
CHAPTER IV-TRADE AND WAR .- Monopolies. The seven years' war. Pon- tiac. The Starved Rock tragedy. Buffaloes. North-west territory. Indian territory. Tecumseh. Illinois.
CHAPTER V-EARLY SETTLEMENTS .- Galena mines. Illinois in 1823. Chicago. Indian Boundary Line. Jesse Walker. Fox River Mission. Vermillion county. Two Quotations. Mark Beaubien.
CHAPTER VI-HOLDERMAN'S GROVE .- Robert Beresford. Seminary land. Landscapes. Reuben Reed. Vetal Vermet. Prairie Du Chien treaty. Res- ervations.
CHAPTER VII-INDIANS, GROVES AND PRAIRIES .- Waubonsie. Gnarled oaks. Origin of the prairies. Sweet and Specie. Bailey Hobson. LaSalle county. Spring election.
CHAPTER VIII-OUR EARLIER PIONEERS .- Earl Adams and Ebenezer Morgan. George and Clark Hollenback. William Harris and Ezra Ackley. Daniel Kellogg. Moses Booth.
CHAPTER IX-THE SHADOW OF WAR .- E. G. Ament. George Havenhill. Abram Holderman. Pierce Hawley. John Dougherty. Walter Selvey. The Cherokee lottery.
CHAPTER X-THE FIRST BLOODSHED .- Shabbona. Indian councils. Still- man's Run. Fox river council. The fatal blow.
CHAPTER XI-THE FLIGHT .- The warning. Scalps and spoil. A good Provi- dence. " A carousal. A narrow escape.
CHAPTER XII-ANSEL REED'S STORY .- Busy at work. The first alarm. A hurried flight. Concealed in the thicket. On to the fort. Rescuing his deliv- erer.
CHAPTER XIII-MORE BLOODSHED .- Mike Gurty. Indian creek. The Mas- sacre. Death of Adam Payne. Vermet's story.
CHAPTER XIV-THE WAR ENDED .- Peter Miller. John Schneider. Chicago fort. Cholera. The Hall girls. Death of Black Hawk. Death of Mike Gurty. First settlers at Oswego. Old settlers returning.
85156
VI
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XV-THE YEAR OF THE EARLY SPRING .- Early emigration. Be- ginning of Newark. The Aments. Beginning of Yorkville. Compulsory tem- perance. Beginning of Bristol. Lyman and Burr Bristol. Daniel Pearce.
CHAPTER XVI-S. G. MINKLER'S STORY .- Lost. Fording. Death of Mrs. Minkler. Hard times.
CHAPTER XVII-TOWNSHIP PIONEERS .- David Evans. John Darnell. Hugh Walker. Chester House. John Shurtliff. Daniel Platt. Stage route.
CHAPTER XVIII-THE OLD TRAPPERS .- Indians. Pioneers and keel boat men. Falling of the stars. Settlers in Fox. Settlers in Big Grove.
CHAPTER XIX-CLAIM FURROWS .- Schneider's mill. Waubonsie's spree. Os- wego. Newark. Millington.
CHAPTER XX-THE GOVERNOR'S PARTY .- The Southern heart. William Mul- kev. Gov. Matteson. First schoolhouse.
CHAPTER XXI-THE PLEDGE AND THE COVENANT .- Old temperance pledge. First Sunday School. Old log church. Pavilion Baptist Church. Rev. A. B. Freeman. Early Methodism.
CHAPTER XXII-SPECULATION AND BUSINESS .- The Ship of State. First house in Lisbon. Seward schoolhouse. Fox. Little Rock. Mrs. Duryea. Death of Peter Specie.
CHAPTER XXIII-TREATIES AND WOLF HUNTS .- Bristol. Oswego. Indlan signatures. Hudson. Na-au-say. War dance. Wolves. An astonished ox. CHAPTER XXIV-THE YEAR OF CORNER LOTS .- Inflation. Indian encamp- ment. Big Grove. Plattville. Jesse Jackson. Little Rock.
CHAPTER XXV - CROWDING INTO THE WILDERNESS .- Yorkville laid out. Bristol. Oswego. Mrs. Young. Seward. Kane county. Poem. Education. CHAPTER XXVI-THE YEAR OF THE PANIC .- Mrs. Preston. Newark. Hol- lenback school. New settlers. Buried in a well. Preaching " at early candle- light."
CHAPTER XXVII-DEPARTURE OF THE INDIANS -Lisbon school. Millbrook. Moving the Indians. Oswego postoffice. Bristol school. The royal monogram. CHAPTER XXVIII-EMIGRATION AT LOW TIDE .- Lisbon and Millington laid out. Millington church. A trip by schooner. Fourth of July. First Survey. CHAPTER XXIX-A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER .- Dr. Brady. Marcus Steward. Hiddleson school. A jury trial. Plattville school. Lisbon Congregational Church. A retrospect.
CHAPTER XXX-THE LAND SALE .- Newark. Misner's plows. Oswego. Bris- tol. The " Wolf " tavern. How farms were bought.
CHAPTER XXXI-THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY .- Settlers and topics of 1840. Debt and poverty. " Tippecanoe and Tyler, too !" An exciting Fourth. Abolitionism. Dr. Dyer.
CHAPTER XXXII-OUR COUNTY'S BIRTH .- Oswego school. Plano cemetery. Stebbins' school. Indian cemetery opened. Birth of Kendall county. First officers. Horatio Fowler. Long Grove school.
VII
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXXIII-DARK DAYS .- The old store book. Accumulated misfor- tunes. Land sale of 1842. Pioneer experiences.
CHAPTER XXXIV-CLAIM FIGHTS .- New settlers. Newark Congregational Church. Newark and Millington cemetery. Schools : Millington, Boomer, Albee. Claim fight. Miller excitement. Ryder murder case.
CHAPTER XXXV-THE SLAVE AUCTION .- Wet season. Academies. Newark Baptist Church. Schools : Shonts', Suydam, Marysville. Albee's cemetery. Negro sale.
CHAPTER XXXVI-THE COUNTY SEAT .- Settlers and improvements. Pearce's cemetery. Doud's cemetery. Schools : Holderman's, Davis'. McCormick reaper. More fugitives. Negro laws. County seat election.
CHAPTER XXXVII-THE MEXICAN WAR .- Oswego Congregational Church. Union and Millbrook schools. Oswego cemetery. Captain Dodge's Company. Captain Fullerton's Company. Telegraph. Local excitement. Oswego brew- ery. Norwegian settlement. Schools : Minkler, Asbury, Bronk, Scofield.
CHAPTER XXXVIII-SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES .- Country towns. Travel. Lisbon. Oswego Baptist Church. Schools : Foster, Austin, Atherton, Ware. Bristol Baptist Church. County officers. Broom factory. Lutheran cemetery. Schools : Plattville, Chapman. Bronk cemetery.
CHAPTER XXXIX-TOWNSHIPS AND RAILROADS .- Supervisors. Naming townships. Union cemetery. Union stores. Brown school. Union Presby- terian Church. Preshur's reapers. Cold weather. New railroads. Johnson school. Parochial schools.
CHAPTER XL-NEW TOWNS .- Oswego Station. Bristol Station. Plano. Cholera. Morris flats. Churches : Oswego Presbyterian, Oswego Lutheran, Newark Methodist, Bristol. Congregational. Schools : Whitlock, Newark, Yorkville, Plano, Pletcher, Naden, Seward Centre, Grove, Fowler Institute. Agricultural Society. Protective Association. Little Rock Press. Little Rock cemetery. Ottawa road. Paper mills.
CHAPTER XLI-THE FLOOD AND THE PANIC .- Oswego Courier. Newark saw mill. Schools : Lisbon Center, Sleezer, Lewis, Shepard, Henderson. Markets. Flood of 1857. Panic of 1857. New enterprises. Post's mills. Blackberry mills. Churches : Plattville, Plano Methodist, Millbrook, Milling- ton, North Lutheran, Lisbon Baptist. Schools : Pearce, Walker, Scott, Van Cleve, Serrine, Becker. Revivals.
CHAPTER XLII-THE PLANO HARVESTERS .- Railroad enterprises. Post's bridge. Shabbona's death. Crops. Marsh Brothers. Harvester Works. Messenger's " gopher." Murders. Schools : Faxon, Bristol Station, Windett, Booth, Worsley, Greenfield, District No. 5, Oswego. Churches : Yorkville, Fairview. Bristol Station cemetery. Latter Day Saints.
CHAPTER XLIII-THE FIRST GUN !- Hurrying to the front. Captain Carr's Company. Tenth Regiment. Seventh Regiment. First enlistments. Thir- teenth Regiment. Twentieth Regiment. Thirty-sixth Regiment. Fourth Cavalry. Fifteenth Cavalry.
VIII
CONTENTS,
CHAPTER XLIV-DEEPER STRUGGLES .- Eighty-ninth. Ninety-first. One Hundred and Fourth. One Hundred and Twenty-seventh. Draft riots. Boun- ties. One Hundred Day Regiments. Close of the war. Home ! Soldiers Aid Societies.
CHAPTER XLV-OUR WAR RECORD FOR 1861 .-- Oswego, Bristol, Kendall, Fox, 227 names.
CHAPTER XLVI-OUR WAR RECORD FOR 1861, CONTINUED .- Big Grove, Lis- bon, Little Rock, Na-au-say, Seward, 308 names.
CHAPTER XLVII-OUR WAR RECORD FOR 1862 .- Kendall, Oswego, Lisbon, 237 names.
CHAPTER XLVIII-OUR WAR RECORD FOR 1862, CONTINUED .- Big Grove, Bristol, Fox, Little Rock, Na-au-say, Seward, 218 names.
CHAPTER XLIX-OUR WAR RECORD FOR 1863-5 .- 1863 : Oswego, Big Grove, Bristol. 1864 : Big Grove, Fox, Kendall, Bristol, Oswego, Seward, Lisbon, Na-au-say, Little Rock. 1865: Kendall, Fox, Big Grove, Lisbon, Bristol, Na- au-say Last company, 261 names.
CHAPTER L-ACCIDENTS AND IMPROVEMENTS .- Tanneries. Fires. Black Hawk's cave. Survey of Fox river. Book of Mormon published. Harvey school. Chapman cemetery. Flood. Accidents. Woolen factory.
CHAPTER LI-THE MILL AND CANAL .- Railroad bonds. Cattle disease. Cat- tle panic. Prohibition. Woman's Suffrage. Accidents. Heap school. First cars. Kendall county Geology. Post's dam. Wing's mill. Millington canal. CHAPTER LII-NEW ENTERPRISES .- Papers. Platt's wells. Manslaughter. Young school. Murder. Grangers. N. S. Grimwood. Horse Association. Churches : Little Rock Union, Plano Baptist. Seward town house. Plano boot and shoe factory. Narrow Guage Railroad.
CHAPTER LIII-OUR NATURAL POSSESSIONS .- Pure water. Magnetic springs. Sulphur springs. Soils. Peat. Sand. Moulding sand. White sand. Limestone. Brick clay. Potter's clay. Wood.
CHAPTER LIV-KENDALL COUNTY INVENTIONS .- Plows. Cultivators. Har- rows. Reapers. Headers. Harvesters. Binders. Horse rakes. Ditcher and Scrapers. Wire fence. Stoves. Stereoscopes. Sewing and Knitting machines. Water wheels. Transportation conveyor. Store furniture. Railroad improve- ments. Miscellaneous inventions. Publications.
CHAPTER LV-OUR NEIGHBORS .-- Ox family. Deer family. Bear family. Dog family. Weasel family. Squirrel family. Rat and mouse family. Mole fam- ily. Birds. Birds of prey. Climbers. Perchers. Scratchers. Waders. Swim- mers. Reptiles. Snakes. Fishes. Insects.
CHAPTER LVI-OUR PLANT LIFE .- Trees. Shrubs. Wood plants. Marsh plants. Prairie flowers. Grasses. Flowerless plants.
CHAPTER LVII-FAREWELL !-- Four stages of local history. A higher sphere. Development of mind. Satan's traps. True science. A wider life. Farewell.
CHAPTER I.
THE MOUND BUILDERS.
ONG AGES ago Kendall county was the southeastern corner of barren rock, which reached up to, and beyond the northern end of the State. Chicago on one side was under water, and Mor- ris and Streator on the other, with the southern part of the State, were part of a vast swamp where evergreens and rushes grew and were made into coal. That was the mediæval time in the world's physical history. Before that, when the sea covered all the country, there were in the water shoals of curious little fellows which geologists have called Tentaculites Oswegoensi, viz .: the Oswego sort of ten- taculites, or shell worms. This sort have been found nowhere but in the Oswego rocks, near the mouth of Waubonsie creek. Then after fourteen or fifteen geo- logical epochs came the
TERRACE EPOCH,
or the ages during which the land was raised and rivers cut new channels below the old. As a consequence nearly all rivers, lakes, and even the sea itself, in many
2
10
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
places, have two sets of banks, one confining the present stream or lake, and the other bounding the flood plain into which the water rises during freshets. The upper banks are often very wide apart. Those of the Fox river below Oswego are more than a mile, and farms are now laid out and a railroad runs over what ages ago was the river bed. It was shallow, however, as were all streams not confined by rocky banks. They probably amounted to but little more than continuous swamps, making the country very unhealthy for human beings.
The table lands between the rivers were swampy in proportion, and in Northern Illinois especially, or that part of it south and west of the lake, there was, per- haps, but a small amount of really dry land.
Kendall county was half under shallow water; the temperature somewhat warmer than at present, and the long sedge grass growing out of the marshes alternated with the groves growing on the ridges between.
At some time during this period Lake Michigan had an outlet by the Illinois river to the Mississippi, and so to the Gulf, and a large part of Cook county and per- haps of some others were under the lake. It is not likely that all the lakes flowed this way, for some of them at least have been flowing through Niagara a great deal longer than that. There may have once been a "divide" midway between the east and the west, which was after- wards broken through. Col. Long, a well-known gov- ernment surveyor, believed that he had located this ancient divide near Detroit.
WILD ANIMALS,
except such as loved water, were not plenty in this part
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A FEW SPECULATIONS.
of the State in those days-compared with other parts. Wolves, bears, coons, and bisons, inhabited the upland, and gigantic beavers worked along the streams, while the huge mastodons, the largest animals that ever trod the earth, haunted the marshes and sloughs and the groves that bordered upon them. It is curious that the remains of mastodons are always found in marshy places to-day, showing that the lay of the land is the same now as then, and that these animals have not been extinct long enough for wet places to become dry. Farther south enormous horses galloped over the prairies, and mammoth, hairy elephants wandered in droves through the woods.
In regard to the ancient inhabitants we can only offer conjectures. Some-as George Bancroft, the historian- believe that the mysterious mounds and earth-works were formed by nature and belong to geology, rather than to history. But it is most generally believed that they are the work of a people who, for want of a better name, are called
MOUND-BUILDERS.
Their earth-works, which have become their monu- ments, are of three kinds: mounds, embankments and enclosures, and are found all the way from Wisconsin to the mouth of the Mississippi. One mound in Cahokia, Illinois, is 500x700 feet in size and 90 feet high. Cen- tral America is one vast field of them, and temples of stone were erected on them which still remain, while in this country the buildings were made of clay and have long ago perished,
The age of these remains seems to decrease as we go
12
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
south. Those of North America appear to be the old- est ; then come the relics of the traditionary Toltecs of Central America ; while the Aztecs, of South America, were in their prime 350 years ago. Both these peoples believed they had come from an unknown land at the north.
The mounds in this part of the State are generally small, but quite numerous. Between one and two dozen are clearly marked on the bluffs along Fox river, in this county, and doubtless many others have been wholly or partially obliterated. One of the finest is on the county line at Millington, on Joseph Jackson's land. It was dug into by a committee of citizens about forty years ago, and found to be a great burial heap. Numbers of human teeth were taken out, but some fragments of bones found were replaced and again covered. It is probable that these were remains of Indians subsequently buried there. Three rows of five mounds each are found on the northern bluff of the river : one on Mrs. Duryea's land, near Bristol ; another on Truman Hathaway's ; and a third on D. R. Ballou's, above the woolen factory at Millington. In Mrs. Duryea's mounds were also found in 1837 some teeth and a decayed skull. Others par- tially effaced are at the mouths of the Rob Roy and Rock creeks, and are only a few feet above the level of the river, proving that since they were built the river has flowed in its present channel. The Rob Roy mound a short time ago was partly uncovered by water, and George Steward, of Plano, our indefatigable archæolo-
13
MOUND BUILDERS' WORK.
gist, picked up there three hundred and twenty frag- ments of
ANCIENT POTTERY,
and others may be found by any one curious enough to look for them. The material is a coarse clay, mingled with sand and flint, and the outside is often rudely or- namented with lines and figures made in the clay before baking. We have no record that our Indians either did or could make such ware, while it is far too coarse to have belonged to any white family, so that we are thrown back on the supposition of an aboriginal race that were in intelligence between Indians and Whites. There are on the same ground an abundance of flint chippings, suggesting to us that the spot may have been a primi- tive store and workshop.
THE MOUNDS
are generally fifteen to twenty feet in diameter, and from two to five feet high ; probably not more than one-third their original height. They are surrounded by no ditches or depressions, and are composed of black earth, by which we may understand that the builders had no digging tools, but scratched up the soil from the surface and brought it in their jars or aprons. It demonstrates, too, that the mounds are not the work of nature, other- wise the interior would be clay or gravel. Their pur- pose was doubtless for burial mounds. Having no means of excavating graves, the people placed their dead on the surface and heaped the soil about them, probably adding to the heap from time to time as others died, until a large tumulus or sepulchral hill was raised. Such ancient mounds. called "barrows " in England, arc
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HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
found all over the world, and are of a class with the stone "cromlechs" of Europe, the "cairns" of Scot- land, and the "dolmen " of France. The larger kinds, however, were undoubtedly designed for defense against enemies.
Admitting these conclusions, it needs but little imag- ination to picture before us those first inhabitants of our country, with their red adobe dwellings along our streams, their rude pottery kilns smoking in the ground by our clay banks, and their funeral processions toiling to cover their dead and leaving some weeping mourner to watch the precious mound.
But the end came. A fierce people, less skillful in peace but more cunning in war, came in upon them and either drove them out or exterminated them, and dwelt in their stead. Soon the rude houses decayed and the conquerors cared not to repair them ; the utensils were broken and they could not replace them, and the frag- ments, like old hieroglyphics, remain to outline the story. The conquered race either perished or passed on to other wilds, perhaps towards the waters of the Col- orado, where the remains of a similar dying race are found to-day.
It does not seem necessary to assign a high antiquity to the mound builders. They were here before white men came, but that was only three hundred years ago. Trees six hundred years old grow on some of their works, but those works may have been abandoned cen- turies before the race went out. Then there is the anal- ogy of the adobe dwellers of Colorado, who, though slowly perishing, are still in existence, while yet they
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CAUSE OF AMERICAN DISCOVERY.
have been surrounded by the wild Indians for hundreds of years. And part, at least, of the perishable remains found in the mounds are confidently believed by scienti- fic men to belong to the mound builders. They may well enough have been here in that traditional time when the gigantic mastodons roamed the lowlands and crossed the swamps in which they were mired, and that time is not ancient enough for wet places to have become dry ; but whatever be the time in which this people was here, they have all gone. Like the ancient monarchies of the East they have passed away ; but unlike those monarch- ies they have left no hieroglyphic monuments to tell the story.
CHAPTER II.
INDIANS AND FRENCH MISSIONARIES.
HE INDIANS were so called by Co- lumbus because he supposed he had sailed across the western sea to the eastern shores of India. He did not know that a new continent in mid ocean had stopped his course before he was half way to India, and that 3000 miles of land blocked the "North-west Passage." It was this gorgeous East that inspired the efforts of all the early navigators, none of them realizing that they had discovered a more valuable West. Nor did they give
16
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
over until every nook and cranny of the American coast, from Brazil to Greenland, had been explored, in hope of finding an avenue through to the Pacific Ocean. But what past generations could not find, the present gener- ation has made, and the continent has become more than a substitute for the ocean, inasmuch as the Panama and Union Pacific Railways are swifter than ships.
When the Indians came to this continent we have no present means of knowing, and their traditions do not tell ; nor do we know from what land their ancestors came. They did not originate here, for they have dis- placed an older people. There are many ways by which they could have come. Behrings Strait is only fifty miles wide, with islands between. It is set down accurately in a very old Japanese Map in the British Museum, showing that the ancient Asiatic navigators were ac- quainted with it and with the land beyond. Then below the Strait, and reaching from Japan to America, is a natural bridge of one hundred and seventy islands- the Kurile and Aleutian groups. On the other side of the continent Greenland and Iceland, whose authentic history reaches back a thousand years, form connecting links with Europe. Greenland is but two hundred miles from British America. Over these different routes many, many voyagers undoubtedly have come whose adventures there was no historian to record. Other pathways are across the great ocean itself. Japanese junks have more than once been blown to our shores; Polynesian island- ers have been drifted across the sea in open boats ; four hundred years ago the Portugese were wafted uncon- sciously to Brazil ; six hundred years ago a Welsh fleet
17
ORIGINAL INHABITANTS.
under Madoc, Prince of Wales, drifted to America, and landed, it is supposed, on the coast of Virginia; and nine hundred years ago the Scandinavians founded a colony on the coast of Massachusetts. We cannot go farther back, for history stops. The latter colony con- tinued for three hundred years, and would probably have been permanent if they could have cut themselves loose from the mother country and become natives. They were not indigenous to the soil. This the ancestors of the Indians did, and they flourished and became tribes and nations which in lapse of time differed in appearance and in dialect one from another. Whatever their ances- tral civilization might have been, they relapsed into sav- ages, and were able by force of numbers to expel all conflicting races not as savage as themselves.
In 1634 the
FIRST JESUIT MISSIONARIES
visited the trackless wilds of Canada, and were followed in the course of thirteen years by more than forty others. By 1641 they had penetrated to Lake Superior-five years before the devoted Eliot had addressed the tribe of Indians that dwelt within six miles of Boston. In 1667 the mission was still maintained and the Pottawatomies and Sacs and Foxes visited it, and invited the missiona- ries to their homes. We get these accounts from the Jesuit narratives which were published at Paris, and are still preserved in old libraries. We believe they are reliable, as the missionaries, as a class, were humble, self-denying men. We cannot be sure whether
THE POTTAWATOMIES
were here at this time or came later. Schoolcraft, the
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HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
famous Indian historian, says that in the early part of the eighteenth century the Pottawatomies had crowded the Miamies from their dwellings at Chicago, that they came from the islands near the entrance of Green Bay, and were a branch of the great nation of the Chippewas or Ojibwas. Others say they came from Canada, at an unknown date. Perhaps both these accounts are true, though we never shall certainly know, for Indians wrote no histories. A piece of writing was to them a dark mystery.
The Miamies were undoubtedly here in 1672, for that year they were visited by Allouez and Dablon, two French Missionaries, who were the first whites of whom we have any record who set foot in Northern Illinois.
But as yet
THE MISSISSIPPI
had not been discovered. It was described by the In- dians as the Great River, in whose waters were savage monsters, and on whose banks were savage nations. There were three theories about it: first, that it ran south- west to the Gulf of California ; second, that it ran south to the Gulf of Mexico; third, that it ran south-east to the Atlantic Ocean. The whole region was a mystery, and was mapped and peopled pretty much as fancy might invent. The earliest books on America contained the wildest tales. They told of races of pigmies and of giants. That the southern forests concealed tribes of negroes, and the inhabitants of the north were white like the polar bear or ermine. One writer had heard of a nation that did not eat, and another believed, if not in a race of headless men, at least in a race whose heads did not rise above their shoulders.
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