USA > Illinois > Knox County > Annals of Knox County : commemorating centennial of admission of Illinois as a state of the Union in 1818 > Part 9
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Lombard College
In the year 1851, another college was founded in Gales- burg by the Universalists, of which denomination there were a number of influential families among the early settlers. The intention was at first to make it more of a preparatory school than a college, and it was to be known as the Illinois Liberal Institute. Accordingly on February 15, 1851, a charter was granted to this new enterprise under that name. In 1852 the school opened its doors to pupils in a new building which was erected on the northwest corner of Tompkins and Seminary streets. The first faculty was composed of two teachers, the Rev. Paul Raymond Kendall and a lady assistant who not long afterward became his wife. Between sixty and seventy pupils were at first enrolled. Dr. Kendall was President and his wife, who was a lady of versatile accomplishments was able to assist him in the various branches taught.
Dr. J. V. N. Standish
In 1854, John Van Ness Standish, a descendant of Captain Myles Standish of "Pilgrim" fame, was added to the faculty. He was a native of Vermont and a graduate of Norwich Uni- versity. From the time of his arrival in Galesburg to the present time, for a period of seventy-four years, the presence
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among us of this honored citizen has been a powerful influence and aid in the up-building of our city. Educational, moral, reformatory, phalanthropic, beneficent, and all other measures looking toward our city's growth and well being have been vigorously, untiringly, and generously supported by him. For forty-one years he has been President of the Park Board, and in that office and also as City Forester, his labors for the beauti- fying of our city have been of inestimable value. Had he ac- complished no other work during his long and fruitful life, that which he has done for the improvement and beautifying of Galesburg would have won for him the tribute : "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Mrs. Harriet Augusta Standish
His wife, who as Miss Harriet Augusta Kendall, a cousin of of the President, came also to join the faculty of the new enterprise in 1854, was a woman of very superior mental at- tainments and culture. After her marriage to Dr. Standish she became his inspirer, his helper, and his counselor in all his undertakings. She joined with him in large gifts for educa- tional purposes, and beautiful Standish Park, the Knox campus, Lombard campus, and many private grounds in our city are a monument to their mutual plans and personal efforts. "Should you seek their monument, look about you." In 1855 the building of the Liberal Institute was burned to the ground, and a new project for the school came to the front. Its trus- tees decided that in planning for a new and better building, plans for the school should also be enlarged.
Benj. Lombard, Sr.
They began to solicit funds with the new building, the higher standards, and the enlarged course of study as their objective. Mr. Benjamin Lombard, Sr., a wealthy Universalist of a neighboring town promised to give $20,000 to the enter- prise, providing the trustees would raise $15,000 and give his own name to the school. Arrangements were finally made for carrying out this plan, and a new charter was secured naming the school Lombard University. This is the name which its charter still bears, although some years ago the trustees voted to drop the name University, (as their plans for University courses had not been realized), and call it simply Lombard Col- lege.
New Location Chosen
The new building was located upon an eighty acre tract, lying one mile S. E. of the original site which gave ample space for such additional buildings as they might need. Mr. Lom- bard offered to pay for this ground if the trustees would pur- chase it and locate the building there. The deed was given to the trustees by Lorentus E. and Mary W. Conger and the pur- chase price was $3,200.
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Dr. Standish is authority for the statement that no col- lege in this section of the country and possibly not one through- out the entire land has been erected under such trying and adverse conditions because of the entire lack of financial re- sources with which to meet the expense of construction. Mr. Lombard's gift which was large for that day was not available until near the close of the year 1856.
The building was erected by degrees, or in sections as it were. After exhausting the slender means at hand at the beginning of the work, the building waited until further funds could be solicited to meet further expenditures. For example, the foundation was laid, the first story put up, the walls tem- porarily roofed with boards, and the workmen dismissed until President Kendall could make a tour of the surrounding towns and country-side presenting the needs of the institution, and urgently soliciting contributions, however small, so that the work might go on. Then the walls of the second story were laid and the work again stopped until a second canvass could be made. Finally the third story was finished and permanently roofed, and the skeleton of the shapely structure awaited for many months the interior finishing of partitions, plastered walls and permanent floors.
Lombard's First Commencement-Prof. Standish Presides
The Commencement exercises of the year 1857 were held in the building temporarily fitted up for the occasion, and Pro- fessor Standish, then acting President while President Kendall was out soliciting funds, conferred the degrees upon a graduat- ing class of five members. Their names were Fielding Bond, Floyd G. Brown, James H. Chapin, Edward D. Lunn and David Scott Wick. Two of these young men died in early manhood and the other three became prominent in public and profes- sional life.
Divinity School
A Divinity School was for some years connected with - institution, but a number of years ago, it was removed to Chi- cago University, and Dr. Lewis Beals Fisher, the President, was placed in charge of it while a new President was chosen for the college.
Lombard S. A. T. C.
The present faculty numbers twenty-two, and the college is one of the units of the Student's Army Training Corps, as a result of our country's participation in the great "World War."
The First Church
Up to about 1840 the material growth of the Church was noteworthy for so comparatively brief a period. The organ- ization of the church had been effected in February, 1837, when sixty-four united with the church by letter and eighteen
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by profession, making eight-eight on the first enrollment. At the close of a series of revival meetings which followed the occupancy of the new Academy building as a place of worship, fifty-eight names were added to the membership of the church, and its moral power was greatly strengthened.
A New Church Building
Early in the forties it became evident that a "meeting house" must be built. The Academy building erected in 183 ; was found to be entirely too small for the gathering congrega- tions for in those days everybody attended church. The his- tory of the meetings and discussions which were held in plan- ning for the ways and means of providing for a new and ample building in those days of great privation and rigid economy form a most interesting chapter in the annals of the colony, but there is not space for it here.
Plans Adopted
A plan for the new building was finally adopted. It was to be sixty feet wide by eighty feet long, and twenty-four feet high from floor to ceiling. As they sat in their unpretentious Academy building and discussed and compared dimensions it seemed to some of them that the height was overwhelming, for the room in which they were assembled measured eight feet "between joists," and twenty-four feet would be three times as high as that room, which would be absurd.
Work of Building Commenced
The original dimensions, however, were adopted and the work commenced. After a time, for lack of money and mater .. ial, the construction was discontinued ; and for months length- ening into years the material which had been gathered lay in unsightly heaps completely filling the southwest corner of the square near the unfinished structure. The building was finally completed sufficiently to be used for the Commence- ment exercises of 1846. It was not wholly enclosed and not seated, but temporary seats of rough planks and a temporary platform were provided. There was to be still further delay before it was finished. In 1848, the building was at last com- pleted and arrangements were made to dedicate it on Bacca- laureate Sunday of Commencement week. The date was June 25th.
President Blanchard preached the sermon and Father Waters offered the dedicatory prayer. He, it was, who with the other members of the purchasing committee, thirteen years before, had kneeled with uncovered head upon the un- broken prairie and dedicated the new enterprise to the Lord, imploring His favor and blessing upon it, and upon all who in all time to come should be connected with it. The momentous events of the intervening years and the interesting and im-
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pressive exercises of that occasion were in part an answer to that prayer.
At two o'clock of the same day Dr. Gale preached the Baccalaureate sermon and Rev. J. R. Walker gave the address before the Society of Religious Inquiry connected with the Col- lege. It was truly a strenuous day for those who attended the entire series of services.
Professor Churchill says of this building subsequent to its completion and dedication : "For many years, as there was no other room in the village so capacious, it was used, not alone for religious meetings, but for musical concerts and scientific lec- tures, temperance lectures, anti-slavery lectures, and conven- tions, and mass meetings held in the interests of many of the great reforms of the day. The most eloquent pulpit and plat- form orators who graced the lecturere's rostrum in the hey-day of its glory always found the old First Church ready to give them welcome. Among those who have lectured there were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edward Everett, Henry Ward Beecher, Wendell Phillips, John B. Gough, and many others of world wide fame. Many a time I have seen the house so crowded on such occasions that it was almost impossible for the speaker to make his way up the aisle to the platform."
Development of Religious Life in the Community
Since the dedication and occupancy of that First Church of Galesburg, which was a notable achievement for that early period in this section of Illinois, the development of the organ- ized religious life of the community has kept pace with the increase in the population. At the present time there are 16 Protestant churches with a total enrollment of between 6,000 and 7,000 resident members, all of them having upon their rolls non-resident members, who for various reasons, have not severed their connection with the Galesburg Church. These figures represent a church membership equal to about one- fourth of the population. There are also two Roman Catholic churches with a combined membership of somewhat more than 2,000. This includes the baptized children as well as the adults.
Hospitals, Etc., At Present Time
Added to these strictly religious organizations are our philanthropic and beneficent institutions which always go hand in hand with the church. There are two Hospitals; an active and efficient Free Kindergarten Home; an Association Home for the care and comfort of boys and girls too old to be cared for by the Kindergarten, the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion, and the Catherine Club, a delightful home for young women who need the atmosphere and the protection of a home in a strange city. The buildings belonging to all of these above mentioned institutions are fine, up-to-date, well equipped build-
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ings. A Day Nursery has also been recently started for the purpose of caring for babies and small children whose mothers are obliged to labor during the day, and have no one with whom to leave their helpless children while they are away from home.
Galesburg Railway Service
In 1854 the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad com- pleted its line from Chicago to Galesburg, and in due course of time this city became an important division station on that great rail way system. The first train reached the town on December seventh between seven and eight o'clock in the morning. The impetus which the varied and far-reaching ac- tivities of this road have given to the commercial and industrial life of our city has been of inestimable value as a factor in its growth and development. Later, in 1886, the great Santa Fe system (which according to Clark E. Carr is one of the great- est railway systems in the world), surveyed its line through Galesburg, and established one of its important stations here, thus contributing in a large degree to our influence and pros- perity. Not every inland prairie town can boast of having given the right of way to two of the greatest trans-continental railway lines of the world, over which tourists and traffic must of necessity unceasingly roll in their passage between the At- lantic and Pacific seaboards.
Notable Events in Galesburg
Galesburg has been the scene of many notable events, some of them involving national and even international issues. Con- spicuous among these was the great Lincoln-Douglas Debate of October 7, 1858. This was one of a series of debates between those two great men and pronounced political rivals, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. These were held at differ- ent points throughout the state during the summer and autumn of 1858. The occasion for these notable political discussions known in history as the Lincoln-Douglas Debates was the can- didacy of the two men for election to the United States Senate, and the question at issue was the momentous question of slav- ery, which had became a national issue.
Col. Clark E. Carr in his book, "The Illini"," says in refer- ence to these debates: "It may be said of this contest that the Constitution of the United States was the platform and the whole American people the audience, and that upon its issue depended the fate of a continent."
Galesburg in the Civil War
The outbreak of the Civil War, in 1861, aroused Galesburg to a high pitch of patriotic enthusiasm and devotion. Many of the best and noblest of her sons offered themselves to the ser- vice of their country and quite a number of them were called
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upon to make the "supreme sacrifice," while others suffered from disease and wounds, and the horrors of confinement and starvation in southern prisons, carrying with them for the remainder of their lives the physical effects of their distressing and disabling experience. Among the soldier volunteers were a large number of students from Knox and Lombard colleges. This greatly depleted the enrollment and interrupted the pre- scribed courses of study in both these institutions from the depressing effects of which they did not soon rally. Too much cannot be said in appreciation of the loyal and sympathetic support of the men in the field by their kindred and friends who remained at home. Especially is this true of the women of Galesburg who were at once organized as a working unt under the name of "The Soldiers' Aid Society," working as sys- tematically, untiringly and effectively as do the women of to- day under the organization of the Red Cross.
Again and yet again were the homes of Galesburg and vicinity opened to receive their dying and their dead, but still undaunted the women toiled on, making garments, scraping lint, filling comfort bags, packing boxes of supplies of all kinds, and writing letters to the soldiers in hospitals and camp.
The reports which have been preserved of the activities of "The Soldiers' Aid Society of Galesburg" and its auxiliaries speak eloquently and thrillingly, and with a touching pathos, of the work of the mothers and sisters, even of the little child- ren in their juvenile sccieties, for the relief and comfort of the brave boys in blue who had gone out from their midst. The story of what was accomplished for their aid reads like a ro- mance. (A more detailed account of the activities of the women of Galesburg during the Civil War may be found in A. J. Perry's History of Knox County, in the section entitled, "Woman's Work in Knox County," prepared at the request of Mr. Perry by the writer of these annals).
Company C-Illinois National Guards
In the spring of 1898 Galesburg again responded to our country's call for the defense of the honor of the government, in the war which is known in history as the Spanish-American War.
Company C of the 6th Regiment, Illinois National Guards, an organization of Galesburg and Knox County men; a thor- oughly organized, well-drilled, efficient company of one hun- dred men, promptly responded to the summons and held themselves in readiness to obey marching orders.
On the evening of the 26th of April they were entrained for Springfield with the expectation that they would soon be called into active service in Cuba and Porto Rico.
At this call to arms the whole city was aroused as it had
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not been before since the days of the Civil War. A great throng, estimated at 10,000 or more of our citizens, gathered first at the armory, where the men of Company C were assem- bled, and again at the Burlington Station where they were to entrain, to give them last messages of farewell and God-speed.
According to an account of the event given in the columns of the Republican-Register of that date, "the scene growing out of their departure was one such as is witnessed but few times in the life of a generation."
On July 26th following, colored men and boys, more than a score in number, also went forth into their country's service, and were given an enthusiattic send-off by the citizens of the city.
Company C, because of its past record during times of strikes and riots, and also because of its manly and patriotic attitude in the present crisis, was one of whom our city was justly proud. During their service abroad, which happily proved to be but brief, they made a remarkable record in more than one respect.
After some weeks spent in camp, they were ranked among the best of the Illinois troops, they were sent across to Cuba to have a hand in the campaign against the City of Santiago. With other picked men they were assigned to a very important duty in the final charge. The final charge, however, never was made, because of the surrender of the city.
Then came the order to proceed to Porto Rico and our men were among the first of the American troops to arrive there. It is claimed that the men of Company C were the very first of our soldiers to set foot upon that island.
They took part in the campaign there and although the Company suffered no loss in killed or wounded, they suffered greatly from diseases incident to the climate, from distress- ing unsanitary conditions, from insufficient and improper food and from lack of suitable camping privileges and equipment.
Many of them were sick, almost unto death, and all of them returned emaciated and worn, bearing the marks of great hardships and suffering.
The company took part in but one battle, that of July 25th, and but one skirmish on the following day.
After four months of service, the 6th Regiment was ordered home, and our men with the others embarked from Ponce, Porto Rico, for the United States.
. Naturally there was great rejoicing when the news came that they had set sail for home, and large plans were la'd for their reception upon their arrival in their home city.
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They arrived on Wednesday September 21st, amidst tle rejoicing and acclamations of thousands of citizens who had gathered at the Burlington Station and lined the streets for blocks, to express to them their welcome home.
The plans which had previously been made for their recep- tion were successfully carried through in detail.
They included a banquet given them at the Universalist Church by the Army and Navy League, and public exercises at the First M. E. Church, with addresses of welcome and appre- ciation by Mayor Cooke, Congressman Prince, President John H. Finley of Knox College, Chaplain Ferris of the 6th Regi- ment, the Rev. Dr. Geistweit of the First Baptist Church and others. Captain .T. Leslie McGirr, who so successfully led his men through the entire campaign that they returned home without the loss of one, was called upon to speak, and he re- sponded in behalf of his company.
His men enthusiastically gave him three cheers as he arose to speak and again when he had finished, a fine tribute to his popularity with them.
In the months immediately following their return home other courtesies in the way of public recognition and apprecia- tion were extended to the men of Company C.
Notable among these was an elaborate reception and din- ner given by the Ladies' Society of the First Presbyterian Church, which was most complete, beautiful and soul-inspiring in every detail. The dining hall and audience room in the church were most elaborately and appropriately decorated with the national colors, artistically arranged in many unique and beautiful designs expressive of the welcome of the church to their brothers who had so bravely represented them in the country's hour of need.
After a most appetizing dinner during which hospitality and good cheer abounded, the company adjourned to the aud- ience room for the crowning feature of this delightful occasion. This consisted of speech-making, gift-giving and singing by a male quartette.
Miss Belle Beatty presided during the evening's program and after a few appropriate words of welcome and appreciation for their honored guests, the men of Company C, she intro- duced Mrs. George A. Lawrence, the President of the Ladies' Society.
Mrs. Lawrence made an address to the men which was re- plete with patriotic fervor and with serious and convincing argument and utterance regarding the obligations and the high privileges of American Citizenship, she warmly com- mended the part which they had so nobly played in fulfilling
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such obligations and rising to such privileges. After referring to the military maps, charts and tactics which had guided them in their recent campaign, she spoke of the Bible as em- bodying in its teachings the only sure and safe chart and rule of practice, which if loyally followed would successfully guide one through the great battle of life.
She then presented to the Company, a large and beautiful Bible, handsomely bound in flexible covers, for their desk at the Company's Headquarters.
Needless to say, the address made a deep and serious im- pression upon the men, and the gift was received with great applause.
Mrs. John H. Finley, the wife of President Finley of Knox College, then addressed them. Her remarks very fittingly and skillfully led up to the presentation of a large and beautiful silk flag for the use of the Company, which was enthusiastic- ally received by them. Mrs. Finley also presented to each one of the men a booklet with red covers, tied with blue ribbon in which was printed upon white paper in blue lettering, a poem written by Dr. Finley, descriptive of their trip to Porto Rico and return.
Captain T. L. McGirr fittingly responded to all these cour. tesies and accepted the gifts in behalf of the men of Company C.
Following this, Dr. W. Hamilton Spence, the pastor of the church, made the address of the evening, which was character- istically eloquent, inspiring and helpful.
And so this most enjoyable and noteworthy occasion came to a close as a befitting climax to the series of welcoming events which had been accorded the patriotic men of Company C., I. N. G.
In commemoration of the part which Galesburg took in the Spanish-American War our city takes a just pride in a fine old Spanish Cannon, a gift from the U. S. Government to Post 45, G. A. R., through whose efforts, ably supplemented by the per- sonal work of our Congressman George W. Prince, this sou- venir was secured from the authorities at Washington.
It was given by the government to Post 45, G. A. R., and was erected by the city upon a site on the east side of our Cen- tral Park at the head of Main Street.
This .cannon is made of the finest metal and was cast in Spain in 1740. It was, among others, sent across to the island just previous to the outbreak of the war to help in the rein- forcement of the fort upon San Juan Hill. When Col. Theo- dore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders charged up the hill and
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captured the fort, thirteen of these guns fell into the hands of the Americans and were sent to Washington as trophies.
The inscription upon it is in ancient Latin, and at the time of its erection in our park the inscription was trans- lated by the late Professor Albert Hurd of Knox College and by Dr. J. V. N. Standish, an accomplished linquist and for more than forty years the President of the Park Board.
Galesburg "A Convention City"
Many patriotic and political rallies, especially during the period of the Civil War, and many state and national conven- tions have chosen Galesburg as a rallying point because of its importance and influence both as to its advantageous location and as to those great moral and educational forces which make for the well-being of a nation and which this community, in years gone by, has possessed in full measure.
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