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Col. M. W. Busey, in 1849, entered lands in Sections 12 and 14, as well as several tracts east of the range line, most of which are now within the city.
Barney Kelley, in 1852, entered the whole of Section 25, part of which subsequently be- came and remained his home until his death.
Elias Chester, of Ohio, the father of the well known citizens, E. O. and E. E. Chester, in 1854 patented lands in Sections 21 and 29.
Mr. J. B. Phinney came to the town soon after its settlement began and improved a large farm in Section 22, upon which he placed buildings which excelled those of all his neighbors. Mr. Phinney became an in- fluential citizen and died at his home in Champaign Township.
Hon. M. L. Dunlap about 1856 purchased largely in Section 36, where he opened the Arst nursery and fruit farm in the county. His influence and teachings were of immense
benefit to the new country in encouraging tree planting and economical farming. He died in 1875.
Frederick Beiser came in 1855, and for many years supplied the markets of the towns with vegetables.
Col. W. N. Coler entered about 1,500 acres of the lands of the township.
Elsewhere, and at some length, the location of the Urbana depot of the Illinois Central Railroad, two miles away from the court house, has been told, by which it was seen that the existence of a separate town from that of the county-seat was inevitable.
Soon after the completion of the Illinois Central Railroad to the center of the county, T. R. Webber, as Master in Chancery, and under a decree of the Circuit Court, platted into lots, streets and alleys, a large space of land of the estate of Col. M. W. Busey, de- ceased, lying between First and Wright Streets, and north of Springfield Avenue, which he sold in lots at Master's sale upon the ground. This was followed by the platting of the land between Neil Street and First Street, now the main business part of the City of Champaign, by the Illinois Central Railroad, shortly followed by the addition of Farnam, Clark and White. This firm con- sisted of Jeffrey A. Farnam and Nathan M. Clark, two of the construction engineers of the newly built railroad, and Mr. John P. White, each of whom was a one-third joint owner of the land subdivided.
In this addition fifteen acres of land were set apart and dedicated to the public as a park, being the first attempt in the history of the county to provide such a boon for pos- terity. The act of these gentlemen, at this early day, in donating a liberal share of their holdings for the public good, is now, and will for generations, be spoken of in their praise. It was a noble example and has already borne fruit in other like donations to the city. (1)
No sooner were the plats of these additions made than lots were sold rapidly, as it did not need time to convince home-seekers of the future of the new town. Faith in its future seemed spontaneous.
(1) Unfortunately, a monument erected in this park has, in stone, given the credit of the gift to the last named gentleman only. The record of the plat confirms the truth of what is here written.
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٠١ تراني ممسجد
-
مججام
HOTEL BEARDSLEY, CHAMPAIGN
LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
805
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
Mark Carley in the early spring of 1854 erected the first dwelling upon the new town plat, if we except the Murphy shanty, and soon moved his family there from Urbana, to which place he had come the previous year from Ohio. Mr. Carley brought to the town a piano, which was the first brought to the county, and for some time the only one in the town.
The first building in the business part of the town-if the depot building is excepted- was erected by the Illinois Central Railroad Company at the northwest corner of First South and Market Streets, which was tem- porarily used by its corps of construction en- gineers, and this was soon followed by the erection, by John C. Baddeley on North Neil Street, of a store building, where on October 10, 1854, he opened the first general store of the place, which he continued for some years. Gardner & Morris built a two-story frame building on the north side of University Avenue two doors east of First Street, and opened a store therein soon after Mr. Baddeley commenced business, and were soon followed by Sexton & Stokes and A. O. Woodworth near the same place. .
Lafayette Lancaster, at the corner so long known as the "Henry Corner," commenced early in the history of the town the grocery and hardware business, and carried it on there for many years.
The first stove and tin-store in the town was opened on the south side of Main Street early in 1855 by McLaurie & Leal, and a gen- eral hardware store by Mr. McCorkle at the First National Bank corner, soon after. The first drug-store was started about 1855 by Robert B. Smith & Brother at the southwest corner of Neil Street and Church Street.
Charles P. Birkett soon after followed with a small stock of drugs. Mr. Birkett wrote poetry and the local press of that day abounds with his contributions of poetic literature.
About the same time L. W. & F. T. Walker opened a furniture store on Main Street, which has had a continuous existence from that date to the present, the present firm being Walker & Mulliken. Mr. Walker is the oldest business man in the place, in point of years of service.
In the early years of the history of Cham-
paign, as of all thrifty towns, many came, en- tered into business, remained for a while, and then moved on. Besides those named above as entering into business there and who re- mained, were S. M. Marble, who for many years did business at the corner of Walnut and Main Streets, where he is still to be found. G. W. Kennard as early as 1859 was on Main Street with a stock of goods, which he disposed of to enter the first company of soldiers recruited here for the Civil War. He is still to be seen upon the streets.
Dr. H. C. Howard, with another, in 1855 erected at the northwest corner of Main and Walnut Streets a steam-flouring mill, the only structure of the kind ever erected in the town- ship. He soon thereafter sold out to Charles Musson for the purpose of taking up the practice of his profession, which he has strenuously followed to this day: His first .professional card appeared in a local paper of April 10, 1856.
J. H. & C. W. Angle were early dry-goods merchants. The death of the senior member of the firm worked the abandonment of the business.
W. C. Barrett was early prominent as a buyer and seller of real estate and built the Barrett Opera house, now the Swannell corner. Henry Swannell, the oldest druggist of the county, began his trade in 1858, and still maintains his place at the head of the trade.
Mark Carley built the first warehouse at the new station about 1855. This was burned and rebuilt of brick on the same site, front- ing on Main Street. He was soon followed in the same business by Henry Bacon; both these men were long and favorably known throughout the county.
A. E. Harmon, an early attorney, with his brother-in-law, Frank Finch, at one time owned the Howard mill, which was sold and moved to University Avenue, when the pres- ent three-story building known as the Mc- Kinley Block was erected on the site of the mill. Mr. Harmon, as a lawyer and a business man, was quite prominent for many years.
The first lawyer to locate in the place was Henry C. Whitney, who removed there from Urbana in 1855. His father, Alfred M. Whit- ney, built a residence at the southwest corner of Market and Main Streets, and upon the
806
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
same lot built an office which was occupied by the two. James B. Mckinley and James S. Jones, attorneys, were the next of the pro- fession to come. Both remained to the date of their death, and were always prominent in the profession and in other business.
At first there were several residences along West Main Street. Besides that of Major Whitney, Mr. McCorkle lived on the First National Bank lot, and L. W. Walker on the north side of the street further west. Walker also had a small frame office on his lot, in which Mckinley & Jones first opened their law office.
Dr. J. W. Scroggs about 1857 erected a two- story frame building on the triangular lot known as the "Gazette Corner," upon which his son, George, ' subsequently erected the building now there.
John C. Baddeley was the first Postmaster and kept the office at his store on Neil Street. The office was established about March 20, 1855.
For political reasons Mr. Baddeley was superseded in 1855 by John Mills, who re- moved the office to the east side. It was here, and under Mr. Mills as his deputy that the unrivaled E. N. McAllister, who for so many years since then, served the community as Postmaster, first became connected with the office.
For some years after the town was started, the east side of the track had the postoffice and the larger part of the business, including the only banking house. The Grand Prairie Bank of Urbana, under the management of Chalmers M. Sherfy, the then County Treas- urer, in June, 1856, opened a branch bank at the northeast corner of Main and Oak Streets, where business was done until the erection of the building now standing at the northeast corner of University Avenue and First Street. Until this was completed and a vault prepared, the cash of the concern was transported, at the end of each day's transactions, over to the main bank at Urbana for safety. Upon the construction of the new building, which was a very respectable concern for the business, the banking business was continued . there under the name of the "Cattle Bank", until the general failure of the stock security banking system in 1861, when the Grand Prairie Bank failed with its fellows through-
cut the State, and both concerns were closed and both towns were without banking facilities until the banking house of D. Gardiner & Co., composed of Daniel Gardiner, a late im- migrant from Ohio, and C. M. Sherfy, was opened in 1862. Soon after the enactment of the National Banking Law the First National Bank was organized and, in time, came. to the front as the first financial institution of the county. 1
L. S. and W. E. Smith, in June of 1855 opened a lumber yard near the present cross- ing of University Avenue, and were the first to import pine lumber to the county for sale. They were followed the same summer by William Rogerson, the father of John Roger- son, and of a numerous family who have since been conspicuous in the county. Mr. Roger- son also bought and shipped grain. He died in 1856 and was succeeded by J. P. Gauch.
G. W. Yerby was an early agent of the Rail- road Company, and also took part in general business as a dealer in real estate and grain.
At the organization of the town all of the Main Street frontage on the north side be- tween Walnut Street and the Illinois Central Railroad, was included within the yards of the Company and was filled with empty cars, wood and coal, enclosed by a high board fence. In time a tier of lots was platted and sold there. So, at the first, what is known as University Avenue had no existence between First and Neil Streets. The plat of the Rail- road Addition of lots, occupying the interven- ing space, did not correspond, in the laying out of the streets with adjacent additions. One going west on the avenue must, at First Street, turn south one square to what is known as First South Street, and, following it diagonally westward to Neil Street, again go south to reach the avenue. This awkward platting was owing to the inexcusable ob- stinacy of some one at the headquarters of the Company, in failing to make the streets correspond with the streets of adjacent addi- tions-this, too, in the face of local protesta- tions. When the town was organized as a body corporate, little time was lost in enforc- ing the opening of the Avenue in accordance with the public demand.
Main Street, when platted, was, as now, with no opening across the tracks of the rail- road. The public demand for its opening was,
807
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
at one time, so clamorous that legal proceed- ings therefor progressed to a verdict for dam- ages so heavy as to be considered prohibitory. Since then the depot building of enduring stone has been landed upon the space sought, to be condemned for the street, so as for- ever to set at rest the question of opening Main Street. Such was evidently the inten- tion of the railroad authorities.
In August, 1855, less than eighteen months after the building of the first residence in the town, a census then taken by State au- thority, showed it to contain a population of 416; and a school census, taken in Janu- ary, 1857, showed a population of 1,202, the children of school age being 357.
By a vote of the people the new town was organized as a village on April 27, 1857, under the name of West Urbana. John W. Baddeley, A. M. Whitney, E. T. McCann, J. J. Sutton and J. P. Gauch were chosen the first Board of Trustees. Mr. McCann was elected Presi- dent of the Board.
A city organization followed in 1861 under a special charter and under the name of "Champaign," to which a change in the name of the station, postoffice and village was had the year before. Under this organization the city has had more than forty years of con- tinuous healthy progress. No "boom" has left its blackened course, but improvement has kept just in advance of the necessities of trade and population.
largest town, gave to the latter a prestige and character beyond its fellows, which has been seen and felt far and near.
The adoption, by vote of the people in 1860, of township organization, which made the establishment of civil towns necessary, raised some propositions as to the lines which were to bound the newly made town, difficult to solve. It was the policy of the commission- ers appointed to this duty to make the lines of the civil towns conform, so far as prac- ticable, to the survey. At that date, one-half of the population of West Urbana village lived east of the range line dividing Ranges 8 and 9, which is First Street, and within the south- west quarter and the south half of the north- west quarter of Section 7 and the northwest quarter of Section 18, extending between Wright Street on the east and First Street on the west. This population would be better accommodated by being attached to the town on the west. So it was that two and half quarter-sections of Urbana Township (proper) were detached therefrom and made a part of Champaign Town for civil purposes.
The location of the line of the Illinois Cen- tral Railroad two miles west of Urbana was understood, even before population began to gravitate in that direction, to be a menace to its continuance as the seat of justice of the county. That fact was soon recognized by those who made their homes in the new town and was made use of by ambitious villagers
For some time after the first buildings were . and the owners of lands and town lots to erected, the town had no name but Urbana, boom their town and to advance the price of town lots on the market, with no little effect. Indeed, as elsewhere stated, it was the gen- eral belief that Urbana, like Old Homer and other towns similarly situated, would soon give up the struggle for a separate existence, take the advice of interested friends and join the westward trend. Why this did not hap- pen is explained more largely elsewhere. The ambition to be the county-seat was laudably entertained by the new town for many years, and with strong probabilities of its gratifica- tion. The writer will indulge in no prognosti- cations as to what may transpire in the future along this line, under possible changes now unlooked for. when to distinguish it from the county-seat and to give it a separate individuality, it was, by general consent, called "West Urbana," although the railroad authorities called it "Urbana," and both places were so known abroad, just as both places are now collective- ly called "Champaign" by many, even near by. So, the names, "Old Town" and "New Town" and the "Depot", were, perhaps, oftener made use of in those years than any other. The assumption in 1860 of the cor- porate name of "Champaign"-a wise stroke of policy due primarily, it is believed, to the suggestion and advocacy of David S. Cran- dall, editor of the Union newspaper-did more to distinguish and individualize the separate Champaign has, from the first, suffered from destructive fires, both in its residence and its business quarters. That of July 4, existence of the new town than anything else. The name of the great county, applied to its
808
HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
1868, destroyed more buildings and laid bare more space than any other. Almost the entire square bounded by Main and Taylor Streets on the north and south, and by Market and Walnut on the east and west, was burned over. The winter of 1904-5 also witnessed two destructive fires. The demands of business and the enterprise of property owners have, in no case, allowed the scars made by these dis- asters to remain long.
The City of Champaign has one of the most complete and perfect sewer systems of any city of its size in the State, if it does not excel any other. It was constructed under the direction of Prof. A. N. Talbot, Sanitary Engineer of the University of Illinois, and, when all dwellings of the city are connected with it, no city will exceed it in point of healthfulness.
The coming of the University to the doors of the people, with its privileges and its hun- dreds of educated and refined men and women, has encouraged education and refine- ment among them; but its presence was by no means necessary to great growth. The stamp of destiny had been affixed before that time, and the unfolding germ of 1867 gave promise of the greatness now realized. It was even before then reaping a wealth of tribute from a large space of country, and was the home of an aggressive population. Its growth has been steady and unabated.
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No township anywhere has better schools, there being within the city six different school buildings, in addition to which there are three parochical schools. Nor can any community of its size boast of a greater number of churches, there being within the city thirteen places of public worship. Besides these, there is one country church in the township and one church at the village of Savoy.
The city has over twelve miles of paved streets, and many miles of sidewalk.
It is not within the scope of this writing to present complete histories of the several townships, or to recall the names of all who have, by their presence and lives, contributed to the making from the blooming prairie the fruitful farms and the thrifty villages and cities to which Champaign County is now able to point with pride, and especially is this the case with the story of this, the most wealthy and populous of the county sister-
hood. It is, perhaps, enough to say that, with the combination of a soil of unrivaled fer- tility, a location upon great avenues of traffic, the emulation of surrounding towns and cities, and what must be reckoned the chief element of success, the coming of a popula- tion rife with enterprise, intelligence and de- termination, the product stands before the observer, a township, a city with metro- politan advantages and privileges, under the shadow of a great University, with prospects the outcome of which no one can justly es- timate, where, but half a century since, was space only-the legitimate result of American enterprise and opportunities, American civi- lization and the liberal Christianity of the age.
COLFAX.
Township 1 North, Range 7 East of the Third Principal Meridian bears the name of a distinguished statesman and Vice-President of the United States, which was bestowed when this township was, by act of the Board of Supervisors in 1868, set off from the town of Tolono, of which, at the adoption of the system of township organization in 1860, it was made a part.
It is almost exclusively a prairie town of black, level land, the exception being a fringe of timber along the Okaw River where it cuts into Sections 25 and 36, and also a very noticeable and abrupt rise in the surface, known as "Blue Mound," in Section 7.
It goes without the telling, from this description, that the 'lands of the town are of unrivaled fertility, and what is equally certain, has attracted to it a thrifty and en- ergetic population, which, within a very brief period, has, by drainage and cultivation, re- duced every acre to a high state of productive- ness. And yet the future of agriculture in this town remains to be told.
The history of the earliest settlements within the territory of this town has been told in the chapter giving the facts connected with the settlement of Sadorus Grove; and, from this it will be seen, that it was within this town that Henry Sadorus, on April 9, 1824, first stuck his stake within the county, and where he, with his family, spent their first summer. So, in point of time of first set- tlement, with its neighbor, the town of Sa-
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
dorus, it antedates all the other towns of the county except the town of Urbana, whose first settler came only two years earlier.
It was not until after the railroads afforded shipping facilities for the products of the country, that any improvements were made west of the eastern tier of sections, near the timber. Until as late as 1865, one might travel across the town unhindered by fenced farms and unguided by roads, other than such straggling trails as had been made by wild animals, Indians and travelers.
Since that date roads have been made on nearly every section line, and the crossings of streams have been furnished with substan- tial steel and stone bridges; so that now the observer will be impressed with the high state of prosperity apparent upon every hand.
The town has been divided into school dis- tricts, uniformly two miles square, including with but one exception, four sections each, the school houses being at the center of each district.
There is no village within the town and no railroad cuts its territory anywhere. The postoffice of Giblin, near the center of the township, affords postal facilities, but the rural routes established by the Government reach most of the neighborhoods.
Two churches in the town afford religious accommodations.
Its nearest shipping points are Sadorus and Ivesdale, on the south, and Seymour, on the north.
COMPROMISE.
By a resolution of the Board of Supervisors in 1869 that part of the town of Kerr lying within Township 21 North, and Ranges 14 West and 11 East, within the county, and so much of the town of Rantoul as was included in Township 20 of Range 10 East, except the west two tiers of sections, was erected into the town of Compromise. It will be seen that congressional township lines have little to do with its boundaries, and it is believed that, to this feature of its makeup, it owes its peculiar name.
This is a prairie town entire, if the little tuft of timber and brush known as "Buck Grove," situated near the northeast corner upon a confluent of the Middle Fork of the Vermilion, is excepted. Its prairie is mostly
of the flat variety lying in the valley of the Salt Fork Creek, where most of the head- waters arise. Some of the water of the town at the northeast corner finds its way by Buck Creek into the Middle Fork. To the state- ment that most of the lands of the town are flat, a strip along the northern border, as well as several sections at the southeast corner, afford exceptions. These lands are quite high and undulating.
It follows from this description that the lands of the township are exceedingly rich for agricultural purposes, and, having been subjected to thorough drainage, are among . the most valuable of the county, although re- mote from the larger towns.
Settlements followed from those in Ver- milion County, up and along the Middle Fork at an early day in the history of the immi- grations hither. Obeying the universal rule among the home-seekers of that day, the shelter of the timber groves and belts alone were sought by the immigrants; and then, in many cases, only for temporary abiding places. The squatter upon the national do- main, here as elsewhere, sought out the locations and beat the trails thereto, only to sell his newly made cabin to the next comer who, perhaps, came to stay, while the former moved again towards the setting sun. In this manner did the northeast corner of Cham- paign County, along the beautiful stream that cuts across there to flow on to the main Vermilion, first become known to and peopled by the white race.
The territory now forming the town of Compromise, being contiguous to this neigh- borhood, owes to these circumstances its first settlement, which is said to have been made by one Isaac Moore at Buck Grove, about 1830. His entry of land, made in 1837, shows him to have been, like his neighbors and con- temporary pioneers, a squatter for some years. He also entered land in what is now Kerr, but did not remain to realize the great future which awaited the new country.
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