Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Kane County, Part 127

Author:
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: Chicago: Munsell Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 950

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The next year settlers began to arrive, seek- ing permanent farm homes, "mill privileges" and

town-sites, and the real occupation and develop- ment of the country began. The stormy years of President Jackson's tumultuous administra- tions, with their disastrous financial con- vulsions and reverses, had brought ruinous commercial losses to many enterprising men throughout all the populous sections of the country. The strong, self-reliant ones, who, through these losses, had become comparatively impoverished, naturally sought new and broader fields of activity in that promising western land whose fame had been told by the officers and soldiers who had traversed it, and thus began a tide of immigration re- plete with intellectual and moral force. North- ern Illinois experienced the full momentum of these influences, and such qualities among its emigrants were potent factors in shaping the future development of Kane County. Very many of its first permanent citizens, were ac- customed to the intelligent discharge of both personal and public responsible duties. They had met unavoidable financial reverses bravely and honorably, and were prepared to meet re- sourcefully, the demands of any new exigency. They were experienced and industrious, and many, both men and women, were highly edu- cated and refined. Kane County was exceed- ingly fortunate in the intellectual, moral and religious character of its early settlers.

CHAPTER VI.

EARLY HOME-SEEKERS.

HARDSHIPS OF EARLY IMMIGRATION-METHODS OF TRANSPORTATION-LOCATING A CLAIM AND BUILDING THE' FIRST CABIN-CONSTRUCTION OF STOCK SHELTERS-HARVESTING THE FIRST CROP-IIORRORS OF A PRAIRIE FIRE-PROCURING THE WINTER'S SUPPLY OF FLOUR AND MEAL- TRIP TO THE OTTAWA GRIST-MILL-EXPERIENCE OF A PIONEER WOMAN-THE BUILDING OF A VIRGINIA WORM FENCE.

It is, at best, a long wagon-road from the States bordering upon the far Atlantic to Illi- nois. But in the days when Western New York

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was only sparsely settled; when Northern Ohio was a new country, and Northern Indiana and Michigan almost uninhabited; when the roads were but the tracks of immigrants passing on their western way; when the smaller streams had to be forded and the larger ones crossed on clumsy and dangerous ferries; when day after day passed without the sight of a human habitation, and the lonely night-camp was made dismal by the cry of wild beasts; it was, indeed, a journey to be dreaded and long re- membered, especially by mothers caring for their little children. Yet hundreds so came, even from distant New England; and infants were borne in their mothers' loving arms over this weary journey. It was needful to be at the new home, early enough in the season to pro- vide for the imperative needs of the coming winter; and, therefore, many started soon after the holidays, and were on the road during the cold storms and muddy season of late winter and early spring. Some came by the Erie Canal to Buffalo, and thence by schooner to Detroit, driving from that point through the wild Michigan forests. On this old Indian and army route the muddiest small streams had been bridged, and the worst swamps and sloughs "corduroyed." Under the most favor- able conditions it was a dreary, toilsome jour- ney never to be forgotten.

In those days all vehicles and implements were made by hand, and, compared with those now in use, were exceedingly coarse and im- perfect. For instance, the wagon-axles were all wood; there were no steel skeins, there were no neatly fitting, smooth steel-boxes inside the hub. The wooden hubs wore upon the wooden axle, and as the wood was harder in some places than in others, they wore unevenly, causing the wheels to "wobble" dreadfully. The wheels were held in place by iron "linch pins." There were no patent lubricants then, and fre- quently it was impossible to obtain grease, and the shrill complaint of the loud creaking wheels, as the weary teams toiled their tedious way, was terribly trying to the nerves. The outfit usually consisted of three or four horses, or of two yoke of cattle. A few well-to- do people had also a covered spring buggy for the women and children, and quite frequently there was a saddle-horse. Sometimes in the cattle teams, there was a cow under the yoke, and almost invariably a milk cow was a

treasured part of the outfit. The wagon was covered with canvas, fastened at the sides and so arranged that the ends could be closed. Within it was stowed the very scant household effects, the iron parts of a few agricultural im- plements and useful tools, some seeds for spring planting and sowing and the food sup- ply for the trip, with a little surplus to start on in the new home. Outside was attached a coop with a few chickens, and sometimes a box, with a pair of small pigs for breeding. At the rear end-board was fastened a feed-box for the team, and the water-bucket swung from the hind axle. The faithful dog trotted be- neath, and the people rode, or walked, as choice or necessity dictated. Often a little strong rocking chair, with a raw-hide seat, was hitched on in such way that it could be easily taken off for "Ma" to sit on in the evening camp. Ten to twenty miles made a good day's progress.

Men and women are still living among us who, floating down the far-reaching rivers and over these dreary wagon-ways, were brought in their infancy and childhood to these wild west- ern homes. They were in haste to find a satis- factory location, and many of them, instead of going to Fort Dearborn or the little unknown village of Chicago, crossed the South Branch of the Chicago River and the Des Plaines at the portage, pushing on west and northwestward over the old trails until they entered with de- light the beautiful grovelands bordering the Fox. Weary with the long pilgrimage, and charmed with the appearance of the country, they halted at a well watered and sheltered grazing spot, near the cabin of some squatter, and began the inquiry and search for a good "claim." The squatter, who was familiar with the whole region, directed them or went with them to the most desirable places; and, while the men hunted for what they thought the best locations, the women rested and, as eagerly as the men, sought information and suggestions from the squatter's family. Meanwhile the teams grazed and rested, putting on flesh and strength for the hard work before them. As soon as a final choice was made the teams were hitched up and driven to the selected locality, which invariably was the sunny side of shelter- ing timber and near to an unfailing supply of water. Here a more comfortable camp was ar- ranged, and busy work was immediately begun

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in preparation for impending needs; for winter is not far away, no neighbors are near, and upon themselves alone they must depend. If early enough to hope that any grain or garden plants will mature, some ground is broken and seeds planted upon the sod, and access to the water supply is made as convenient as possible. A "claim" is marked out, either by plowing a furrow or driving stakes and blazing trees around it, and its lines are laid as nearly as may be with the points of the compass, in order that they may conform to future Gov- ernment surveys. Meanwhile, with more or less earnest discussion, they select the location of the cabin, having in mind the building, by and by, of a better and more permanent home. The women and children attend the growing crop, guarding it from the grazing stock, while the men cut and prepare logs for the house and poles for the cattle-sheds. The log houses were usually about fourteen by sixteen feet in size and eight logs high. The logs were cut to suit- able lengths where felled in the timber, and the ends afterward properly notched to bind the corners, and perhaps flattened a little to make them fit closer. If the man had suf- ficient skill, he cut straight and square the ends of some of them at proper lengths to leave openings for the door, and one-or possibly two -- small windows. When thus prepared, he hauled them to the selected site, and, with the assistance of the family only, or such other help as he could procure, the logs were put in place, making the four walls. Then he put up pole rafters and cross-ties, and upon these he placed in layers, like shingles, the oak or bass- wood shakes he had split and flattened with the handy axe. Across each course of shakes he placed a binding pole, reaching from end to end of the building, and fastened the whole roof securely at the gables with hickory withes and vines.

The family can now move in and be better protected from the heat and storms than in the wagon camp. In connection with other work, he can more leisurely carry up the gables, and build the fire-place and stick and mud chimney at one end. He makes the door and window-casings with the axe and a draw- shave-if he has brought one-and pegs them into place. Then he "chinks" the openings be- tween the logs with mud and sticks, and lays the puncheon floor. He makes the window-

shutter and the door of bass-wood shakes, which he takes particular pains to shave straight and true, and hangs them on wooden hinges that he has made. He arranges a wooden button to fasten the shutter and fits a wooden latch to the door, through which, a little above the latch, he runs "the latch- string that is always out."

Now his attention is turned to providing shelter for the stock. He cuts posts about nine or ten feet long with crotches at the top, and sets them in the ground to a depth of a foot or two, in rows down the sides and across the ends; and, if the shed is to be wide, he places longer posts down the middle. In the crotches he lays good solid poles for plates, and reaching across the posts lays upon them poles for rafters. Then he sets stakes down the sides and ends, of course leaving an opening for an entrance, the tops resting against the plates, and the bottoms slanting out a little, standing upon the ground. Around these, and over the whole top, he places first small tree-tops and brush, and later stacks plenty of straw and slough hay, and the result is a very dry, warm shelter for the stabled stock and the poultry.

Before all this work is completed, whatever of crop he had planted is beginning to ripen, and the upland prairie grass, which made ex- cellent hay, was ready for the scythe. For- tunately, crops growing upon new sod needed very little cultivation, and usually the women and children could care for them. Corn could be left upon the stalk indefinitely, but the other grain had to be harvested as it matured. The light crop of the first year, and the prairie hay, the farmer and his family harvested without help. The men cut and pitched both the grain and the hay, but the women and children as- sisted in the raking, binding and stacking. The grain was secured in round stacks gen- erously topped with slough hay, and the hay was stacked in long ricks, so placed as to form wind-breaks for the stock. The cabin, sheds and stacks were in close proximity, so that they could be most easily protected from the awful prairie fires. Early in the fall the farmer "back-furrowed" a wide strip of plowed ground around them all; and, as soon as the grass was dry enough, when there came a still day with no wind, he "back-fired" and carefully burned a much wider girdle outside the plowing, to further protect against the late

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fall and the spring fires that were liable to come sweeping, with terrible fury, around the little home, scattering the kindling sparks far and wide.

The prairie fires were a sharp menace and dread to the early settlers. The whole prairie land was covered in summer with a dense growth of grass and flowering plants, from one to two feet in height, with frequent rosin-weed and other stalks five or six feet tall, while in the sloughs the thick coarse foliage was doubly as rank. In the fall, when matured and killed by the frost, and then thoroughly dried by the warm winds of the beautiful Indian summer, this vast mass of evenly spread vegetation was dry and inflammable as tinder, and blazed forth at the least touch of flame and sped away, in ever widening area, actually "upon the wings of the wind." Words cannot exaggerate the awful terror and sublimity of the great fires which once swept, like oceans of flame, over the wide prairies, and people will marvel at the tales of their magnificent fury. The mysterious instinct of all wild creatures seemed to warn them of the approaching danger, before any sense of man could dis- cover cause for alarm, and their terror told him of the impending peril. Then came the faint odor of burning vegetation, the scarce perceptible darkening of the sky and the total hush of the breeze, when suddenly, out of the unnatural stillness, away yonder leaped the monstrous sheet of flame, sweeping onward with incredible speed. The child of sixty years ago will still recall, with a thrill of horror, this awful menace and the frantic struggles to save the cabin home. Backward against the wind it only crept, and a child could control or ex- tinguish it; but with the wind, it rushed with the full velocity of the current on which it rode, a solid sheet of flame flashing high in the air, and with fierce heat, instantly burning the life out of any living creature caught in its fiery breath. The great sheet of roaring flame rose and fell with the wind that swept it onward; yet it passed as quickly as it came. Whatever could withstand its scorching heat one dreadful minute was safe, for the black- ened land in its wake was fanned by a cool breeze the instant it had passed. During the autumn time the evening sky was often lurid with the light of prairie fires, some of them miles away. Buildings or stock were rarely de-

stroyed, but much fencing and many stacks of hay or grain were ignited and consumed.

Having protected his buildings and stacks from this menace by the plowing and back-firing, the first settler turned his attention toward se- curing flour and meal for the winter consump- tion before the approaching stormy weather arrived. One of the nearest mills was at Ottawa. If he had been' able to raise a little wheat, he threshed a few bushels with a flail he had made, and winnowed it in the breeze; by hand they shelled a few bags of corn, and early in the morning, with a plentiful box of lunch, he starts for the mill. If he passed a neighbor's cabin, he would probably take a few bags for him also. There were no roads or bridges, and when he reached Ottawa his grist must await its "turn at the mill," and so the trip might require a week, or even a fortnight, if bad weather should come upon him. On the way and at the mill he camps with his team and wagon, subsisting upon the lunch the good wife had prepared, and such game as he may chance to have shot. While he is gone the wife is left alone, unless there are children in the household. But everything is new and strange, and full of interest, and there is plenty of work to do; so the days are rendered quite endur- able, even though during the whole time of his absence, his wife sees no human being ex- cept, perhaps, some silent and hungry, but not hostile Indian whose presence she had in- stinctively dreaded. Yet brave as she might be, when the shadow of the lonely night drew down with all its mysterious sounds, awakening phantoms of imagination. and when from out the deepening darkness the malignant howl of the prowling wolf suddenly broke the awful silence, a shuddering sense of her vast and utter isolation swept over her with almost mad- dening force.

Through all their long and active lives, these pioneer women were never able to fully shake off the dread remembrances of these nights of horrible loneliness. In the first hush of night, and in that darkness which preceded the dawn, the wolves were most persistent in their howl- ing, and a single one could convey the im- pression of the presence of a score of wailing demons. One of the brave women often told her children an incident of one of these dread- ful nights. She said the wolves had closed their evening serenade and all was still and

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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

quiet, when she heard a scratching noise at the little pen she had made for her few chick- ens, in the angle of the chimney outside the cabin. Suspecting it

was made by wolves endeavoring to get her chickens, she took the heavy iron-poker from the hearth and stepped out of the door. As she ap- peared, a wolf at the corner of the cabin- drew back a few feet, snarling viciously and snapp- ing his white teeth, while, as she turned the corner of the house, its mate was trying to crowd himself into the little opening that had been left for the passage of the chickens to the inside. Summoning all her strength, she dealt the animal a blow across the back with the poker, bringing him quickly out and sending him howling to join his mate. While they were growling and snapping their teeth but a few feet distant, she piled some heavy sticks from the wood-pile over and around her chicken-pen to save her fowls from another attack. During the night she heard the wolves scratching and whining about the pen, but they were unable to reach her precious chick- ·ens.

The slow days come and go and, at last, the weary team comes toiling homeward, and no one can tell the relief it was to both husband and wife to have him back again. And, then, he had brought flour and meal, and the winter's food supply was fairly assured. Probably he had also purchased a few of the most needful groceries, and, last, but not least, perhaps he had brought a wonderfully welcome letter from the home-folks "back East." The letter post- age then was twenty-five cents, and that repre- sented much more labor and economy than a dollar does now.

Every day of the first winter, in this new country, was spent by the men in the woods getting out rails and stakes for the fence that must be built in the spring to protect the next summer's crop, and in preparing the season's fire-wood.

Early in spring, while the ground was soft from the effect of the winter's frost and rain, the farmer broke as much more sod as possible, and upon all his plowed land he sowed oats and wheat and planted corn, and then at once fenced all the land his rails would enclose. A good farmer did not lay the bottom rails of his fence upon the ground, but he placed a thick block or stone under each corner for the pur-

pose of heightening the fence and preserving the lower rails. In order that his fence should be straight he set a high visible guide-stake at each end of the proposed line. Then he fastened a cross-bar at its center upon a similar stake, about eighteen inches above its sharp- ened lower end. This cross-bar was twice as long as the distance of the angle he intended to give each rail. By setting this stake on the line of the guide-stakes, the projecting end of the cross-bar would indicate the point, where the ends of the angling rails should meet and rest upon each other. Thus built, the outer corners, the center of the fence, and the inner corners would each be upon true and straight lines. Such a fence made of rails fourteen or sixteen feet long, laid five rails high, and then well staked and "double ridered," afforded ex- cellent protection from intrusion by any do- mestic stock. Hundreds of miles of rail-fence were built in the country, and it was the best available until the introduction of wire about 1870. Amid such loneliness and privations, and in such hard labor the early home-seekers spent their first busy years in Kane County.

CHAPTER VII.

MILLS, MILL-DAMS AND BRIDGES.

PROMOTERS OF EARLY MILL ENTERPRISES-THE M'CARTY AND THE CLIFFORD BROTHERS-THE FOUNDING OF AURORA AND ELGIN-A PERILOUS JOURNEY AND GRUESOME FIND -- MILL ENTER- PRISES AT NORTH AURORA, MILL CREEK, BA- TAVIA, GENEVA, ST. CHARLES, DUNDEE AND CARPENTERSVILLE - THE FIRST SAW-MILL - EARLY BRIDGES.

Our civilization is a complex development and, at every period of the county's settlement and growth, there was need of all the varied avocations and industries. Mills for sawing lumber and for grinding grain, however, were immediate and imperative necessities; for shel- ter and food are each day indispensable. It is an interesting coincidence that the first

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seekers for mill-sites, both at the south and at the north end of the county, were in each in- stance brothers coming from adjacent counties in Western New York, and that each pair of brothers came on foot to their respective lo- cations-in the one instance coming up the river, and, in the other, down the stream. These two instances are given somewhat in detail, and yet very briefly, as indicating the courage required and the hardships endured, by the resolute people who originated and, with indomitable will, pushed to success the establishment of the larger enterprises neces- sary for the development of the new settle- ments; because, in these two cases, the in- cidents are best authenticated, and because they pertain to the establishment of the two prin- cipal cities of the county. Equal toils and perils were met and overcome by the enterpris- ing men who conducted similar enterprises in each of the fine cities adorning the rich valley of the Fox.

Joseph McCarty, the founder of Aurora, who was a mill-wright by trade, left his home at Elmira, in Chemung County, N. Y., in the fall of 1833, accompanied by a young apprentice named Beardslee (or Barsley) in quest of a desirable water-power and "mill privilege" in the West. They made their way westward over the hilly, thinly-settled country to the Alle- gheny River, where they fashioned a dug-out, in which they, with their chest of tools, floated down that rapid river to Pittsburg-the trip being both arduous and perilous. Thence they proceeded down the Ohio upon one of the primitive little steamboats of the time, and up the Mississippi to Cape Girardeau, Mo., where they worked at odd jobs for their living until early spring. Then, as best they could, they made their way up the Mississippi and Illinois to Ottawa, examining various locations of which they had been told, but not finding any place that gave satisfaction. McCarty was almost discouraged, but at Ottawa he met a man named Robert Faracre, who agreed to ex- plore with them the Fox River. The three pro- ceeded up the valley of the Fox and were charmed with the beauty of the country and cvident fertility of the soil. On the first day of April, 1834, only seventy eventful years ago, they reached the Indian village of "Wah-bn- seh," and here McCarty found the full realiza- tions he had so far, so long, and so diligently

sought. The east bank of the stream was covered with the magnificent timber of the "Big Woods." On the west side he often caught glimpses, through the park-like openings, of the fertile prairie stretching away to the distant groves and horizon. In midstream of the river lay a lovely wooded island. A few yards below the island, the river swung gracefully west- ward and flowed, in shallow, rippling current, over a pebbly, rocky bed a very short distance, when it again curved southward upon its for- mer course. No more charming scene could be imagined. Careful examination showed excel- lent banks on both sides of the stream, and up- on the island, a solid bed of rock for the foundation of the dam with ample fall of water to insure power for the mill-wheels.

Here McCarty determined to locate, and he at once marked out a claim of about 360 acres on the east side of the river, and erected upon it a log cabin some ten by twelve feet in size. This was the beginning of the enterprising and handsome city of Aurora. In order to control both ends of the dam, Mr. McCarty also made a claim upon about 100 acres on the west side of the river and built a shanty upon it; and, dur- ing the summer, he purchased a claim to about 400 acres, lying south of his first claim on the east side of the river, paying a squatter sixty dollars for it. This was for his younger brother Samuel McCarty, who was also a mill-wright in Chemung County, and who arrived at his brother's on the 6th day of November, 1834. During that winter a Mr. and Mrs. Stephen A. Aldrich and their two children lived with the McCartys, Beardslee and Faracre; and these seven persons constituted the entire white population of the present wealthy and populous city of Aurora.

In March of the same year (1834) Mr. Heze- kiah Gifford, of Oneida County, N. Y., deter- mined to explore the beautiful country of Northern Illinois, where broad acres of fertile lands awaited the plowman; where living springs, running brooks and flowing rivers watered all the lands; where wood and timber were found in sufficient abundance to meet all the needs of the new settler. He sailed from Buffalo to Detroit, obtained a sort of stage conveyance to St. Joseph, and again, by schooner, sailed to Chicago, which he declared "was hardly a fit dwelling place for a colony of gophers." He said that, "around its dirty

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Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Kane County, Part 127

Author: Publication date: 1904 Publisher: Chicago: Munsell Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 950

Author:
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: Chicago: Munsell Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 950