Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Kane County, Part 130

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

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650

HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

quito netting was a most recent convenience. Flies, mosquitoes, gnats, millers and varieties of flying bugs were far more abundant than now. Matches were almost unknown; the flint and steel, with tinder or punk, was often used, and some fortunate people had a "sun-glass." Fire was carefully buried in ashes and kept over night, and if it unluckily "went out," the good wife had to send or go to a neighbor's, probably a mile away, and borrow some live coals. The house was so small and the presence of so many men was required to do all the farm work by hand, that she had no place or time for privacy or quiet rest; and yet, so ad- mirably adapted to necessary surroundings is our human nature, that both men and women toiled contentedly and happily, amid these ad- verse conditions, in making and improving their pioneer homes.

The little clock or looking-glass shelf in the cabin was usually ornamented with a display of Indian stone-hatchets, and flint, spear and arrow-heads, and by strings of blown-out wild bird eggshells, ranging from the large sand-hill crane and wild-goose egg, to the tiny ones oť the wren and humming bird. There were also a number of massasauga rattles, of varying sizes and number of buttons. Perhaps a wasp's nest, of unusual size or peculiar shape, decorated a corner of the single room.

All the slaughtering and the dressing and preserving of the pork and beef was done on the farm, and the farmer's wife "tried out" the lard and tallow. Whenever an animal was butchered a portion of the meat was dis- tributed among the neighbors, and if it was a calf, the "rennet" was carefully preserved for some neighbor who occasionally made a cheese. The scarcity of fruit was a great discomfort for a number of years until the transplanted trees and cultivated fruit plants began to produce. The wild fruits were abundant during the short season, but they quickly passed, and for months there was no fruit to be had save the scant supply of very choice "preserves" that good house-wives carefully prepared. Dried pump- kin was the common substance for table fruit, during many months of the year. "No,

thank'ee; not any pickle," said the hired man, "but please pass up the pumpkin sass." Bread (and pancakes for the winter breakfast), salt pork and potatoes, and milk gravy were the regular and monotonous daily diet. Game and fish were abundant, but the men were too busy

to capture or prepare them for food. In winter the children caught great numbers of prairie chickens and quails in traps set with a "figure- four."

Often when the fish were "running," the men of a few neighboring families would procure a seine and have a day's profitable sport at the river, and sometimes the women accompanied them for a picnic. They selected a place with gradually sloping banks and smooth even bot- tom, from waist to arm-pit deep, and the excit- ing sport began. A sufficient number of men to draw it taut and haul it steadily, handled the seine by the rods at its ends, and they swept it out into, and in a wide curve through, a portion of the stream, then gradually bringing the ends to the shore and carefully drawing it out to the center, where the fishes gathered, and so landing the shining, flopping catch. The small ones and nondescripts were tossed back into the water. A successful sweep of the net brought to land at least a bushel or two of fine pickerel or red horse, whichever was running. Pickerel were preferred. Sometimes they dressed and salted the larger portion of the catch as they were taken. A reliable man tells of helping to catch, near St. Charles in 1837 or 1838, with a four-rod seine, and dress and salt ten barrels of fine pickerel in one day. To in- sure a fair and equal division of the fish, the men would divide them into as many equally desirable piles as there were parties interested. Then a bystander was blindfolded, turned around a few times and placed with his back to the fish, and a person pointing to one of the piles, asked him "who shall have these?"-to which he replies by naming one of the party. Thus by questions and replies each pile was ap- portioned. These fishing excursions, turkey- shoots and wolf-surrounds were the larger sports of the men; tea parties and quiltings in- terested the women; and dancing parties, sing- ing schools, spelling matches, corn-huskings, and pumpkin-parings were the entertainments of the young people. Oxen did the greater part of the team work, and often drew merry parties of young folks to these frolics. Aside from the "prairie schooners" of the immigrants, it is doubtful if there was a half score of covered vehicles in Kane County as late as 1840.

Hired men working by the year received about eight or nine dollars per month and their board and washing; the hired girl had from six to ten shillings per week. A fairly good cow was

DAVID MASON'S PIONEER HOME.

DAVID MASON'S HOME, 1903.

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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

worth seven to ten dollars, an ordinary yoke of oxen from thirty-five to sixty dollars, and a horse was of about the value of a yoke of cattle. There were very few cash sales at any price, as barter was the almost universal rule, and the people then in the county were financially very poor indeed, in comparison with its present in- habitants.

After about 1840 Chicago furnished a reliable cash market for the surplus wheat product of the farm, and it was taken there by teams un- til the advent of

the railroad. Forty bushels was a fair load for a team of horses, and the trip from the Fox River required about three days. Ox-teams, of course, were slower, yet they were very fre- quently used. There were many freighters who, with four and six-horse teams and huge covered wagons, made regular trips from the country west as far as Galena, and Frink & Walker were running daily lines of four-horse stages between Galena and Chicago. In the fall after the threshing was nearly completed, and while the roads were fine, all the highways leading from the west through Kane County to Chicago were filled with loaded teams, and half the few houses along the way were "taverns." Each of them, and the public-houses at Chicago also, were full to overflowing every night. Each bed would have two occupants, and then the late comers slept on the hay at the stable, or on the bar-room floor. It was a joke of the times, that Mark Beaubien of the old "Sauganash" could cover sixteen men with one blanket, by suc- cessively drawing it carefully from those asleep over the ones who had just lain down. Five shillings for supper, lodging and breakfast for one man and hay for the horses, was the regu- lar price at country taverns. Whisky, "which then sold for about eighteen cents a gallon at every grocery store," was free. Kane County farmers usually took with them noon lunches for the men, and oats or corn for the horses. Wheat sold at Chicago for from thirty to fifty

cents per bushel and dressed pork for about ten shillings per hundred. The teams usually found return loads of goods for the merchants, or of lumber, and very frequently they brought out the families and household effects of new- comers, who had arrived by way of the lakes.

No work whatever had been done upon the roads, and at about this date (1837-1840) the first bridges over the streams were being built. There was very little fencing to interfere and teamsters picked their own way through and around the sloughs in wet weather. It was by no means unfrequent for them to drive into the wet slough as far as the struggling team could move the load, then carry the sacks across on their backs, hitch the team to the rear end of the wagon and draw it back in the deep cuts its wheels had made in the wet sod to firmer ground. They then put the team in place again at the pole, drove over where the sod was uncut and reloaded the sacks of grain. In the late fall of 1848 or 1849, two men and a boy of fifteen spent a whole afternoon in taking two loads of Kane County wheat from the east end of Meacham's grove to Cottage Hill (now Elm- hurst), a distance of two or three miles across the prairie to the terminus of the Galena & Chi- cago Union Railroad. They would "back" half a load across a slough, and by doubling the team draw the other half load over. How many times they waded sloughs carrying a two-bushel bag of wheat cannot be told; the labor of it the reader may imagine. As the track was laid westward, each new station-which was merely a side-track and a little passenger platform, with carpenters at work constructing a cheap depot building-became a busy crowded point of shipment, toward which hundreds of teams turned from the paralleling highways on either side, to transfer their loads to the waiting cars; and, after a rain, such struggles through the soft sod between the highways and the won- derful new railroad, were constantly occurring along the whole line and on both sides of it.

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HISTORY. OF KANE COUNTY.

CHAPTER X.

DAIRYING, STOCK-GROWING AND MANU- FACTURES.

A REVOLUTION IN INDUSTRIES-DECLINE IN AGRI- CULTURE AND RISE OF THE DAIRYING INDUSTRY -INTRODUCTION AND GROWTH IN CHICAGO- IMPROVED BREEDS OF DAIRY STOCK-ORIGIN OF ELGIN DAIRY BOARD OF TRADE-STATISTICS OF BUTTER AND CHEESE TRADE-OTHER STOCK- GROWING INTERESTS-ELGIN WATCH COMPANY AND OTHER MANUFACTURING ENTERPRISES- AGGREGATE CAPITAL AND NUMBER OF EMPLOYES -FOX RIVER VALLEY CITIES-BANKING BUSI- NESS AND PROPERTY VALUATIONS.

The settlers in the new county were, of ne- cessity, too deeply absorbed in producing crops capable of giving quick returns with which to meet their immediate and pressing needs, and to pay for and improve their lands, to give much attention to agricultural methods, per- haps more profitable but requiring longer time in bringing financial returns. During the first fifteen or twenty years of the county's settle- ment, the new land gave a bounteous and reli- able yield of excellent wheat; and it was prac- tically the only source of cash revenue for all the people, for, as yet, there was no manufac- turing industry in the county except of individ- ual workmen in the common trades to meet strictly local needs. Every financial transac- tion depended upon the yield and price of wheat.

Early in the '50s, however, the yield began to decline and the entire failure of the crop to become more frequent, thus forcing the peo- ple into more varied productions and indus- tries. Chicago's enormous handlings of wheat were creating a great lake commerce and at- tracting the attention of capitalists. Its fu- ture as a great railway and commercial center was becoming clearly apparent, and its hotels were crowded with brainy men intent on large business plans and projects. The young urban giant of the century was fairly entering upon its marvelous career. Its demand for food sup- plies that must of necessity be fresh and whole- some each day, was rapidly outgrowing the

ability of local producers to furnish promptly and reliably. The hotels, especially, found it difficult to obtain pure sweet milk, with punc- tuality and certainty, each day. The effort to supply this daily necessity opened a new indus- trial era in the Fox River valley and through- out the great Northwest. On February 12, 1852, Mr. Phineas H. Smith shipped from El- gin, over the old Galena & Chicago Union Rail- road to the late J. Irving Pierce, then the gen- ial landlord of the "Adams House" in Chicago, the first can of milk ever sold out from the county of Kane. Little did he, or any other person, then realize the vast industrial revolu- tion being inaugurated. Years later, as Elgin was rapidly becoming the center of an immense trade in dairy goods and supplies, when its products were sought and prices quoted in both domestic and foreign markets, that battered old can was traced and found; and it is now in the possession of Mrs. A. M. Stewart, the daughter of Mr. Smith. It has been exhibited at Dairy- men's Associations in this and neighboring States, and was given an honorable place at the World's Columbian Exposition, as a significant. relic of the opening of a most wholesome, profit- able and widely-distributed industry. Many persons now claim the cow to be, of all the ani- mal creation, man's best and most constant friend from his cradle to his bier. In Kane County she is certainly the gentle queen of safe and profitable investments.

Other Chicago hotels soon made contracts with Elgin farmers for their daily supply of milk, and the peddlers of the city quickly sought the same source of supply. The move- ment seemed extremely popular and, in a short time, nearly every milkman's wagon in Chi- cago was labeled, "Elgin Dairy." They received their cans of milk at the cars each day on the incoming of the morning trains; and the scores of these wagons, crowding toward the milk-cars almost before the train stopped-each driver struggling to secure his cans and hurry away-attracted the attention of hundreds of travelers each day, and spread the fame of Elgin as a dairy center far and wide. This continued many years after Elgin ceased to ship a can of milk, and to quite an extent is still practiced. Naturally, conditions upon the farms changed to meet this new demand, and dairying became the dominant interest of the county, although in Big Rock, and in portions of the adjoining townships, many fine steers and hogs are still raised and fattened for the

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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

Chicago market. Successful dairying requires the very best strains of milk-producing stock; yet, while breeding-cows yield the largest flow of excellent milk, it is also highly desirable to produce animals best fitted for the shambles when their brief career as milkers terminates. As a consequence the study and experiments, tending toward these results, have wrought wonderful improvements in the domestic ani- mals of the county. The "scrub" stock of the pioneers have vanished and there are now as fine breeding herds of Durham, Hereford, Hol- stein, Guernsey and Polled Angus cattle in Kane county as can be found anywhere else in the republic. Few of the dairymen, however, seem to favor full-bred cows, but rather to pre- fer a cross showing a generous strain of their favorite blood. In riding through the county, it is not difficult to note the preference of the owners of the fine herds of milk-cows grazing in the rich pastures by the wayside. Since about 1874, when Dr. Joseph Tefft introduced his famous Friesian-Holstein cow, "Zwaan," which startled our incipient dairymen by a daily yield of eight gallons of milk, there has been a marked increase in both the quantity and quality of the milk produced. The change in the products of the farm is now complete. To-day no wheat is raised in Kane county, nor any other cereal for market, while hundreds of car-loads of various stock foods are annually brought into the county, and the Fox River valley is known as one of the finest dairy reg- ions of the world. The great factories of "Bor- den's Condensed Milk Company," located at El- gin, Carpentersville, and St. Charles, alone re- quire an average of many tons of milk daily, in the preparation of their various brands of excellent lacteal foods. This company has never failed to make monthly cash payment in full to its patrons; and, since its organization in 1863, it has disbursed many millions of dol- lars to the farmers of Kane County.

Early in the '60s many of our dairymen en- gaged in the manufacture of cheese and, for ten or fifteen years, produced much more cheese than butter for the general trade. The factory- men soon discovered, however, that a large por- tion of their best product was repacked at Chi- cago-their sole market-and put into pack- ages labeled "Orange County Butter" and "New York Full Cream Cheese," and, under these false brands, was quoted in the Chicago papers and sold on its markets at higher prices than was demanded for Western butter and cheese.

They long and earnestly protested to both pub- lishers and dealers against the unjust decep- tion, but in vain, and the persistence of these misrepresentations brought about the organiza- tion of the Elgin Dairy Board of Trade in 1872. Chicago dealers ridiculed and ignored the pro- ject, and the Southern and Eastern markets were appealed to. Their representatives, espec- ially from St. Louis and New Orleans, at once appeared at its meetings and readily purchased its offerings, thus assuring its success. The ex- traordinarily rapid expansion of its operations, as producers and purveyors of these indispen- sable food supplies, here met on fair and hon- est terms, has been a marvel of surprise to its most sanguine friends. Its vast volume of steadily increasing trade is shown in the sub- joined table compiled by its Secretary and published in the Elgin Dairy Report:

STATISTICS OF THE ELGIN DAIRY BOARD OF TRADE-Total production for thirty-one years (1872 to 1902, inclusive) : Butter, 587,989,045 pounds; cheese, 193,631,354 pounds. Total number pounds 'of both, 781,620,399; value, $147,361,251.

The following figures indicate the average price of butter per pound (in cents) on the Elgin Board of Trade for the last fourteen years, viz .: 1889, 22 3-4; 1890, 22 3-8; 1891, 25; 1892, 25 1-4; 1893, 25 7-8; 1894, 22; 1895, 20 6-10; 1896, 17 8-10; 1897, 18 4-10; 1898, 18 8-10; 1899, 20 6-10; 1900, 21 8-10; 1901, 21 1-8; 1902, 24 1-8.

The sales on the Board, during last six years, have aggregated as follows:

Pounds.

1897, Butter

44,224,022

Value. $ 9,137,219

Cheese

9,520,668

618,834

Total

$ 9,756,053

1898, Butter

.42,579,139

$ 8,004,878

Cheese

6,841,715

496,024

Total

$ 8,500,902

1899, Butter

43,610,507

$ 9,027,374

Cheese

6.104,725

518,901

Total

$ 9,546,275

1900, Butter

44,061,368

$ 9,638,424

Cheese

4,399.964

307,997

Total

$ 9,946,421

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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

1901, Butter

44,763,468

$10,464,277

Cheese

6,840,413

547,233

Total

. $11,011,510

1902, Butter

. 45,121,360

$10,887,784

Cheese

5,847,408

467,792

Total

. $11,355,576

Grand Total

. $60,116,837

It will be observed that far more butter than cheese is now sold upon the Board. Of course, Kane County actually produces but a minor portion of these enormous handlings, yet here the butter trade of the world centers; here the the vast product of the best butter ever made for the general market finds its outlet to the consumer, and the quotations of this Board of Trade establish the price in the markets of the world. Some of the finest and largest creameries ever operated in any land are lo- cated in Kane County, and are steadily turn- ing out 250 to 300 sixty-pound tubs of pure creamery butter per week; and the company controlling them operates scores of other model factories in this and adjoining States, having a combined output of delicious butter that sells for more than a million dollars annually. The factories are introducing a unique method of dealing with the farm dairymen that may prove satisfactory and helpful. It is to have the cream extracted from the freshly drawn milk at the dairy by a hand separator, and only the thoroughly cooled cream brought to the factory; the sweet skimmed milk to be fed to the young stock on the farm. As each invoice of cream is received at the factory, a very carefully weighed quantity is taken to the "testing room" and, by means of a "tester," its exact quantity of "butter fat" is ascertained. From these data the amount of butter it will produce is determined, and the farmer is paid according to the price of butter.

Improvement in the size, power, action, en- durance and style of the horse has fully kept pace with that noted in cattle. The first marked improvement in this direction was the introduction by the Fletcher Horse Company of the splendid Percheron Norman stallion "Success" about 1870, and his immense suc- cess laid the foundation of the great "Oak Lawn" stables which, today, stand at the head of all like establishments in the land. Mr. Mark W. Dunham (deceased) was the active

member of this company, and in 1874 he pur- chased the interest of his copartners. His original farm of about 200 acres has been en- larged to include 1,700 acres of as fine grazing, hay and grain land as can be found, and the splendid property is now owned by his only son and two daughters. "Oak Lawn" has im- ported and bred about 5,000 Percheron and French coach-horses of the finest type and pur- est lineage, as is evidenced by the awards it has received, amounting to 182 first prizes, and 42 medals of the highest order, from the last five Universal Expositions held the United States, Great Britain and France.

Fine studs of imported Clydes from Scot- land, and Cleveland Bays from England, were soon after established within the county, and have been steadily and profitably maintained. During the '40s one or more choice "Black Hawk" or "Gifford" Morgans were brought into the county, and a little later the "Updykes" appeared. At about the close of the great war, the Hambletonians were introduced, and in later years the Oak Lawn, and some other sta- bles, have had full stalls of the very best im- ported French and English coach-horses. Gen- tlemen of ample means and lovers of this no- blest animal creation have kept, in their city stables and on their stock farms, sires of the choicest strains of racing blood known to the turf; and the result of breeding and cross-breed- ing these very best stocks is shown in the splen- did horses daily to be seen on the streets of every city, and on every highway of the county. It is not extravagant to assert that Kane has as high an average excellence of horses as any county of our great State.

From about 1845 to 1885 considerable atten- tion was given to sheep-raising, and the first extensive manufacturing establishments in the county were the "Aurora Woolen Mills" of James G. Stolp, which commenced carding and spinning in 1837, and weaving in 1849, employ- ing from seventy-five to one hundred and twen- ty-five hands in the manufacture principally of heavy woolen cloths until about 1887; and the S. Newton Dexter mills at Elgin, which began operations in 1847, and some twenty years la- ter, under the management of Mr. J. P. Good- ale, manufactured from 300 to 500 yards of ex- cellent woolen cloths daily. But the produc- tion of wool ceased to be profitable and these industries have languished and died. Kane County now has practically no sheep upon her meadows and downs, except the fine breeding

OAKLAWN FARM. (Founded by H. W. Dunham.)

No 321 HCB :S

LATWEBSTER

SPECIMENS OF KANE COUNTY STOCK.

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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

flock of pure Spanish Merinos kept by E. Peck & Sons, of Geneva, who for full fifty years have been very widely known as among the most reliable and intelligent flock masters in the State.

Pens of excellent Berkshire, Poland-China, Chester Whites and other breeds of hogs used to be exhibited at the fairs of our local agri- cultural societies, and during that period of dairy development, when a good deal of butter was made upon the farms and much milk worked up into cheese at the neighboring fac- tories, the hog was a profitable farm product; but that condition is also past, and now our dairymen buy their pork, beef, mutton and butter almost as universally as does the me- chanic. The old-time methods of farming and farm-living in Kane County are gone forever, be- ing superseded by new, and in many respects, better modes.

An epoch in the transition from pioneer to settled conditions is marked by the laws of 1864, forbidding domestic stock to run at large. It will be observed that stock is, of necessity, permitted to graze at will upon the unenclosed pasturage of a new country; and not until the land is well occupied and cultivated, will public sentiment require the owner to confine his grazing animals upon his own premises. As the capabilities of the country were developed, hamlets and villages sprung up, with postoffice, school-house, church, store, tavern, blacksmith, shoe-shop, and other similar conveniences- first along the stage routes and later upon the railway lines throughout the county; but the utility and beauty of the river traversing the whole length of the county inevitably fixed the location of the larger villages and cities upon its banks, and their growth has ever fully equaled the prosperity of the country. It should be remembered that, previous to the great war, nothing was produced upon the farm for a market beyond Chicago, and the very limited manufacturing interests of the towns had little wider scope. The supply of a small portion of strictly local needs of the people absorbed the energies and covered the aspirations of the people of both country and town.

Marvelous changes have been evolved in only four decades. Today, it may fairly be ques- tioned if there is another community, of sim- ilar area and population, upon earth, furnish- ing from its farms and factories products dis- tributed so universally and widely over and around the whole world. For, wherever civil-

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Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Kane County, Part 130

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