USA > Illinois > DeKalb County > The voters and tax-payers of De Kalb County, Illinois; containing, also, a biographical directory a history of the county and state, map of the county, a business directory, an abstract of every-day laws > Part 1
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45
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SHABBONA.
THE
VOTERS AND TAX-PAYERS
-
OF
DEKALB OUNTY, I LLINOIS
CONTAINING, ALSO, A
BIOGRAPHICAL DIRECTORY OF ITS TAX-PAYERS AND VOTERS; A HISTORY OF THE COUNTY AND STATE; MAP OF THE COUNTY; A BUSINESS DIREC- TORY; AN ABSTRACT OF EVERY-DAY LAWS; OFFICERS OF SOCIETIES, LODGES, ETC., ETC.
P
4 1
CHICAGO:
H. F. KETT & Co., 15 LAKESIDE BUILDING.
1 876.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by H. F. KETT & CO., In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
-
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 warfare 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 published, gratuitously, every thing they see fit to send us, which usually is of a personal 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 impossibility. Most townships have been gone over by the third man, but still there are undoubtedly errors, mostly in spelling names and in dates. We have several cases in DeKalb 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 threshing 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 6,800 names, the vote being about 6,000, 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 or farmer; they contain invaluable information. 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.
CONTENTS.
MISCELLANEOUS.
PACE
Agricultural Statisties of DeKalb 138
Population of DeKalb Co. 134
Population of the United States.
Population of Fifty Principal Cities
Population and Area of the United States ..
Population of Principal Cities in the World 83
Population of Illinois .84 & 85
Township Organization 135
Village Corporation. 137
Town Government 13%
Officials of Societies, Lodges, etc.
139
Pioneers of DeKalb Co
132
Interest Table. 82
82
Map of DeKalb Co. Front Page.
Business Directory ..
338
Too Lates and Changes. 152
PORTRAITS.
Shabbona. Frontispiece.
Glidden J. F 1844
Ellwood E. 80
Marsh W. W. 151
Marsh C. W 151
Miller Win. A 16
Hopkins Thus. M.
128
HISTORICAL.
History of Illinois 13
History of DeKalb County. 86
Physical Features.
Indians of the Country.
89
Early Settlement. 90
Claim Association. 91
Organization of Co.
92
First Courts, Court House, etc 94
97
Towships Organized
98
Rapid Entry of Land.
98
DeKalb and the Rebellion
99
Sketch of U. P. Church, Somonauk
101
Sycamore. 102
Sandwich. 119
DeKalb
111
44 Cortland. 124
4 Somonauk 113
123
Genoa ...
125
80
Form of Blank Note.
66
Order.
66
Receipt .... }
66
Bills of Purchase.
66
..
Articles of Agreement.
67
Clerk for Services. 67
68
Bonds.
68
Chattel Mortgage.
69
Cortland
221
DeKalb.
180
Franklin.
Genoa. 312
Kingston 292
241
May field 299
Milan. 286
..
Warranty Deed
74
..
Quit Claim Deed.
75
Release.
76
Form of Will.
South Grove
279
Squaw Grove. 261
Sycamore
153
Somonauk. 194
Vietor
306
BIOGRAPHIES.
Ellwood Renben .. 141
Glidden James F. 145
Marsh C. W. & W. W 151
Miller Wm. A. 145
Hopkins Thos. M. 149
Waite Campbell W. 148
Boies Henry Lawson 147
Robertson Gilbert HI. 142
Winne Dr. C. 146
Bloodgood Henry F 150
Post L. H. 149
West Chas. A 150
ABSTRACT OF LAWS OF ILLINOIS.
Bills of exchange and promissory notes .... 45
Interest.
45
Descent 45
Wills and estates. 46
Taxes 18
Jurisdiction of Courts. 48
County Courts.
49
Limitation of action
49
Married women
49
Exemption from forced sale. 50
Estrays
51
Deeds and mortgages
51
tiame .. 52
Weights and measures
52
Millers
53
Marks and brands.
53
Adoption of children.
54
Surveyors and surveys.
54
Roads.
55
Drainage
57
Paupers.
58
Fences
60
Damage from Trespass
61
Landlord and Tenant.
61
Liens.
64
Definition of Commercial Terms
65
Church Organization
79
Kingston. 130
130
Ilinekley.
130
.. Shabbona. 129
Waterman 130
TOWNSHIP DIRECTORIES.
Afton .. 248
Clinton. 330
71
Landlord's Agreement.
72
Tenant's
72
Notice Tenant to Quit.
73
44
Tenant's Notice lo Quit.
~3
Real Estate Mortgage to Secure Money. 73
Paw Paw 232
Pierce. . 256
Shabbona 320
...
Codicil.
79
Malta.
Suggestion to Persons purchasing Books by Subscription
Bills of Sale
Lease of Buildings
Malta.
Kirkland .
New Court House.
Miscellaneous Table.
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HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.
The name of this beautiful Prairie State is derived from Illini, 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 inhabit- 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 French 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
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 render 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 canoe 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 were 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 intervening 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 of welcome. The plain on which the town had stood was now strewn with charred fragments of lodges, which had so recently swarmed 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 priests of St. Sulpice, among whom he had a brother, were then the proprietors 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 canoes, 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
WILLIAM A. MILLER DE KALB PIONEER OF DE KALB COUNTY
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 mas- terly stroke made it safe to attempt a hitherto untried 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 sm ull 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 place, 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 the 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
19
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.
the oldest French towns in the Mississippi Valley. Kaskaskia, in its best days, was a town of some two or three thousand inhabitants. After it passed from the crown of France its population for many years did not exceed fifteen hundred. Under British rule, in 1773, the population had decreased to four hundred and fifty. As early as 1721, the Jesuits had established a college and a monastery in Kaskaskia.
Fort Chartres was first built under the direction of the Mississippi Company, in 1718, by M. de Boisbraint, a military officer, under command of Bienville. It stood on the east bank of the Mississippi, about eighteen miles below Kaskaskia, and was for some time the headquarters of the military commandants of the district of Illinois.
In the Centennial Oration of Dr. Fowler, delivered at Philadelphia, by appointment of Gov. Beveridge, we find some interesting facts with regard to the State of Illinois, which we appropriate in this history :
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