Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Kane County, Part 141

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

USA > Illinois > Kane County > Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Kane County > Part 141

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Soon after the arrival of Olds, the Giffords and the Kimballs at what became the village of Elgin, and of Drs. Joseph Tefft and Nathan Col- lins at Clintonville, as heretofore stated, farm settlers began to appear. Isaac Stone and E. K.

711

HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

Mann-young men from New Hampshire who had entered into a bachelor marriage-were perhaps the first to locate west from the river. They staked their claim and built a log house- near the center, now of Section 17-a little over three miles west of the river, beside the Indian trail that passed near the two peculiar isolated rocks, which were a noted land mark. Jonathan Tefft, Sr., with his family of ener- getic sons and daughters, and Joseph P. Cor- ron also made claims in 1835, and became per- manent settlers. From this early date settlers were constantly arriving and locating claims until, at the date of the opening of the land- sale, January 30, 1843, nearly, if not quite, every acre in this township had been claimed or pre- empted. Among the excellent pioneer farmers in the south and southwesterly sections were, P. C. Gilbert, Thomas Mitchell, Truman Gilbert (who platted the village of Clintonville), H. E. Perkins, Caleb Kipp, Seth Stowell, John Pru- den, Martin Switzer, George Stringer, George French and Nathan E. Daggett. Along the Udina road had settled Asa Merrill, Sr., and Gilman H., Asa, Jr., Richard and Bazilla Mer- rill; Aaron Mann and his sons, William R., Adin and Leonard, half-brothers of E. K. Mann; Francis and Harriet (Mann) Weld, and their sons, O. P., Dr. N. A., Newton F. and Salem E .; Ezekiel Ballard and family, and Nathan G. Phil- lip, his son-in-law; Henry Sherman and Cyrus Larkin; William Plummer and his sons; Joseph Kimball and his sons and son-in-law, Hiram Wilson; Calvin Pratt, Almon Fuller, Gen. Eli- jah Wilcox and his sons. Solomon and Solomon Harvey Hamilton and James Todd had located on the more northerly roads; Cotton Knox, Sid- hey Heath, the Abbotts and others were near the river. Asa Merrill's tavern at Udina, and Joseph Kimball's tavern on the north road, were doing a big business, while "Uncle Billy Plummer" also offered excellent entertainment tor man and beast. Within the village, beside those mentioned in the general history of the county, we find among the active men at this date, Jason House, the first permanent black- smith; Bernard Healy, the first harness maker; Philo Sylla, George W. Renwick, Samuel Hunt- ing, Augustus Adams and Alfred Hadlock, with machinery and repair shops; George Hassan, the first dairyman; Abel Walker, the first un- dertaker; John Smith, the first gunsmith; Vin- cent and John Lovell, George W. Kimball, the first cabinet-maker; P. J. Kimball, Jr., the first

tailor; Horace Benham, mill-wright. Philo S. Patterson had a little yellow grocery where the Home Bank now stands. In 1838 B. W. Ray- mond and S. Newton Dexter bought the north- erly portion of James T. Gifford's claim, and thereafter contributed greatly to the pros- perity of the place. Dr. Anson Root came about 1839 and purchased heavily of Gifford's village and water rights, and became at once an important factor in the community's develop- ment. He was a man of remarkable persist- ence and energy. William S. Shaw, Lewis S. Eaton, Luther C. Stiles and Daniel S. Wilcox were pioneer carpenters, David Longley, the first wagon-maker, and 1. P. Scott, the early-day liveryman. George P. and E. E. Harvey, S. P. Burdick, David Hunter, B. Hall, Burgess Trues- dell, Calvin Carr, Harvey Raymond, Philo Hatch, Aaron Harwood, Halsey and Asa Rosen- kranz, John S. Calvert; W. W. Merrill, Whitman Underwood, William Bellows, and a few others were making homes in the village. Many times more oxen than horses were in use upon the streets, and an event of far greater general in- terest than any ordinarily transpiring now, was the daily arrival and departure each way of the stages plying between Chicago and Ga- lena. Hezekiah Gifford opened the first tavern in the fall of 1836 in a log house which he put up at the southwest corner of Villa and Chicago Street, fronting on Villa Street, and astonished the public by keeping no whisky. Charles Tibballs and William S. Shaw built a frame tavern just south of it, called the "Eagle Hotel." The small frame building, now standing close to Du Page and Villa Street, was put up on the north side of Du Page just south of the tavern and used as a store. Hunting and Renwick built and cperated a brick blacksmith shop where the Universalist church now stands. North of them, and opposite the Eagle tavern, another little store was opened, and next at the south- east corner of Villa and Chicago Streets, Dr. Root built his two-story brick residence, in whose upper rooms his daughter Mary, who be- came Mrs. Increase C. Bosworth, taught school. Shaw and Tibballs later built a much larger frame tavern called the "Elgin House," where the Congregational church stands, and which was excellently kept for ten or twelve years by Tibballs. The stages stopped at the newest of these taverns, as they were successively erected. William Humphrey kept the "Eagle"

712

HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

after Tibballs left it, and later it was run by John S. Calvert. Dr. Joseph Tefft lived where the City Hall stands, his barn fronting Spring Street, and his office was on Chicago Street, with a little building beside it used as the post- office. Longley's wagon-shop was nearly oppo- site, and House's blacksmith shop was east of it, nearer the corner of Villa Street. James T. Gifford established a brick yard east of Spring Street between Du Page and Fulton Streets (the latter street named after his son Fulton), and built a lime-kiln in the bank east of the brick yard. Dr. Root's house, the David Hunter house (now Y. W. C. A.), B. W. Raymond's store (now Leitner's market), and probably Augustin Raymond's house (now W. F. Sylla's house) were built with brick and lime from this kiln and yard.

This was nearly all there was of Elgin in 1840 except hopeful prospects. It was thought that the broad part of Villa Street would accom- modate the future business needs of the com- munity. William C. and Samuel J. Kimball, who were brothers, were leading in the im- provements on the west side of the river. There were at least three distinct families of this name in the community, and not only were the first birth, first death and first marriage in the village all in these families, but Jona- than Kimball was the first Justice of the Peace, and Samuel J. Kimball the first constable elected. The gratifying growth and develop- ment of this prosperous city and township, dur- ing the early days, is briefly, but more gener- ally, stated in the history of the county.

HAMPSHIRE TOWNSHIP.

Township 42, Range 6 East, is the northwest · township of Kane County. It all lies west of the Fox River watershed, and its streams flow to the Rock River. It was a beautiful region in the early day, in the fact that almost its entire surface was open woodland. It contained very little prairie and no body of heavy timber. It is not level, yet in the whole township there is not a single incline long or steep enough to fairly be called a hill. The soil is fertile and deep, and every part of the township is well sup- plied with water. From the east and south, four or five spring brooks flow westerly and northwesterly to the Coon Creek. For some

inexplicable reason the public lands in this and Rutland Township were opened to entry and sale on September 2, 1839, three years and four months before the lands at the south and south- east of it came into market. Zenas Allen, of Vermont, father of Ethan J. Allen, once Sheriff of the county and Adjutant of the. Fifty-second Illinois Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, with a numerous family of children and grandchildren, marked out a claim to a large body of land in what became Sections 36 and 35, and built the first cabin in the township near where the school house now stands. A little la- ter in the same year Thomas E. Whittemore, of New Hampshire, and Samuel Hawley, of Connecticut, arrived and made claims a few miles farther toward the north and northwest. Hawley's claim became, in the government sur- veys, a part of Section 28, and his patent is- sued on preemption certificate number 5,061, dated May 20, 1841, signed by John Tyler, Presi- dent, for the northeast quarter of said section, is certified by the Department of the Interior at Washington, to be the first patent issued con- veying land situated in Kane County. The northeast corner of this land adjoins the present village of Hampshire. A few years later Allen made another claim, a mile or two further north of his first, on Section 23, where he lived with his son John A. until his death. In 1837 and '38 Daniel Hall, William H. Seymour and S. A. McApes took up claims still further north in Sections 13 and 12, and gradually quite a set- tlement gathered around them, which came to be spoken of as Hampshire, the name of the township-but more definitely as "Henpeck." This was on the old stage road, and William N. Humphrey, who bought the Eagle Tavern at Elgin, of Tiballs and Shaw, sold it very early in the 'forties to John S. Calvert and opened a tavern here. E. A. Garland, a New Hampshire man, also a tavern-keeper, transferred his loca- tion from West Elgin to a stage-road house about one mile northwest of "Henpeck," where the remainder of his life was spent. Each was considered a good landlord. Isaac Paddock and William Trumbull, of New York; Stephen Haviland, Hilda Coon, and John Aurand, from Germany, were early settlers in and near this community. Lucien Baldwin and Samuel C. Rowell, both from Vermont, took up claims in an early day. The number of New England people among these pioneers readily explains the preference for the name of the township.

713

HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

The Rev. Robert Williams, a New Hampshire man, was the first resident preacher. There was immense teaming done over the stage roads in the decade preceding the first railway. So old Hampshire became a noted camping place, not only for teamsters but for settlers seeking locations, and it became the temporary stopping place, where pioneers camped while prospecting the country. From one to three score wagons in camp was no unusual sight at this place.

John Aurand was the forerunner of a large number of excellent German families, who did much to improve and enrich this fine township. Among them were the Reins, Leitners, Klicks, Garlicks, Wertweins, Getzelmans, Widmiers, Hausleins, Waidman, Peter Johnnin, John Blazer, and others. One of the most quaint and conspicuous was John Wales, a brother of Mrs. Aurand, who was one of the first storekeepers, and earliest Justices of the Peace in the town- ship. Everybody knew him and was his friend. When an old man he spent some years among the Blackfoot Indians near the Canada border, and although they were then accounted the most cruel of the tribes, he declared them to be his kind and faithful friends. Among the early and useful families we find in this township the Dotys, Isbell, Patchens, Reed, Ter- willigers, Bell, Lyon, Hogeboom, Weed, Bean, Williams, DeWitt, and the Baldwins.

Hampshire has furnished three County Sher- iffs, viz .: Adjt. Ethan J. Allen, Capt. James C. Brown and N. S. Carlisle. The present Repre- sentative in the State Legislature, Hon. Charles H. Backus, is the banker at Hampshire, the only village in the township. The village was platted October 22, 1874, by Andrew J. Willing and Ceylon A. Fassett, and incorporated in 1876. Its first trustees, elected November 9, 1876, were S. C. Rowell, President; J. S. Wyckoff, Secretary; Philip Doty, E. W. Whelp- ley, Hervey Ruin and A. R. Freeman. It is a fine dairy township, and in the village there is a brick and tile yard, grinding mill, pickle fac- tory, and other minor industries.

The first white child born in the township was Jane A. Seymour, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William H. Seymour, born in 1840. The first school house was built a little later on the west half of Section 10, about where the "Bean" school house now stands. Zenas Allen, T. C. Whittemore and Samuel Hawley were the first School Trustees in 1842.

KANEVILLE TOWNSHIP.

Kaneville Township, in the western tier of townships, is the second from the south line of the county. It embraces Town 39, Range 6, in the government surveys, and today is one of the richest, most productive and handsomest townships in the county. But it was not so con- sidered in the earliest days of the country's settlement, for the pioneers were fond of woods and hills, and this portion of the new country seemed a low prairie, save a little woodland in the northeast, and a grove near the center, so isolated that they called it Lone Grove. The two branches of Big Rock Creek head respect- ively in the eastern and the western portions of Kaneville, in wide low bottom lands, that, before settlement, grew rank high grass, and were too wet to be attractive. Each of the first two land claimants were drawn to Lone Grove by the view they had of this body of timber across the prairie from Blackberry. Job Isbell, an unmarried man, noticed this grove in pass- ing to a claim his brother James had made in Blackberry; and in the fall of 1835 went across the prairie to it, staked out a claim and built a little log shack. Returning to Ohio, how- ever, he died there, and the claim was aban- doned until renewed by his brother James, who, in 1837, came from his settlement in Sugar Grove and took possession of it. In October, 1836, Amos Miner drove an ox-team that M. Sperry, of Blackberry, had purchased of Levi Leach, an emigrant with whom Miner had made his way into the new country as far as Naper- ville. After delivering the oxen, Miner walked to this grove and staked out a claim on its south side before returning to his family. He must have gone six or eight miles at least across the wild country from any sign of human habitation. The next spring he brought his wife and daughter Rosaline, in some way, to the "claim" and put up a shack in which they managed to live. He had no team, and worked for his distant neighbors, splitting rails in winter and harvesting in summer, sometimes as far distant as Naperville, to pay for a little breaking, a cow, seed, tools, and a team-living as best they could, sometimes the wife and child utterly alone during the whole week. He would buy on time and pay in work, until he succeeded in establishing a home and getting a team. It is said that he split 2,500 rails to pay for breaking his first five acres of land, and

714

HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

that he raised upon the sod, corn, beans, buck- wheat and vegetables enough to subsist his family until the next crop. Thirty years later he had a splendid farm of over 600 acres, in- cluding a third of the beautiful grove and the broad rich prairie land south of it, with a habi- tation and home of abundant comfort and de- light. The first birth in the township was that of his daughter Mary, who married Robert Al- exander of Campton. She was born November 27, 1837. Isbell and Miner's family were the only residents of the township until Alfred Churchill came in the fall of 1837. John B. Moore had just arrived and made a claim which he sold to Mr. Churchill. His daughter Sarah Moore and James Isbell were married Febru- ary 24, 1838-the first wedding in the town- ship.

The first school in the township was taught in 1839 by Miss Fayetta R. Churchill, in her father's house, and she also taught the opening school in the first log school house of the township, which was built near the cen- ter of Section 22. Her father procured the es- tablishment of the first postoffice at Avon, and was its Postmaster. He was an unusually ca- pable man of whom mention is made in the general history of the county. This daughter became the wife of David Hanchett, another of the very best of the early settlers of the township. Indeed the trinity of Davids-David Hanchett, David W. Annis and David Snyder- whose fine farms covered these rich bottom lands in the southern part of the township, is . one very rarely equaled. Mr. Annis and his young wife came to the county in 1836 or '37 from Stratford, Vt., the place of their nativity, and soon after settled for life in Kaneville Township. Integrity, intelligence, energy and economy constituted the invincible equipment which they brought to the new frontier home with very little else save youth and health. But these are forces that invariably win in the battles of life. None did more than they in ad- vancing all the interests of the community, and none were held in higher honor and esteem. Forty years later they left their descendants, who are among the county's best citizens, a patrimony of 1,800 acres of the choicest lands in the Garden State. The McNairs, Inmans and David Wentworth came in 1838. The govern- ment sale of the land in this township opened January 30, 1843, and owing to the distrust of prairie land, considerable of it remained un-

claimed as late as 1845. But again the last proves to be the best. There is little doubt that, for purely agricultural purposes, that is the choicest township in the county. Beside its heavy dairying interests, stock-raising and feeding are still a prominent branch of busi- ness. Kaneville has the least railway of any township in the county; yet is well supplied with shipping facilities with convenient sta- tions in the southern, eastern, and northern portions.

Kaneville, the only village and postoffice in the township, early became quite a business and social center. It is very pleasantly located at the crossing of the two main highways lead- ing from the river towns and roads, the one northwesterly and the other southwesterly, each of which is a much frequented thoroughfare; and whoever even passes through this delight- ful country hamlet, retains an impression and memory of neat and orderly thrft, of abundance and comfort, and quiet elegance that it is very pleasant to recall. The Rev. Thomas Ravlin purchased the claim to the prairie land upon which the village is located of Willard Inmann in 1845, and then procured his title from the Government. John Bunker was the first magistrate, elected in 1845 under the old. precinct organization. Needham N. Ravlin was the first postmaster. The applica- tion for the establishment of the postoffice sug- gested the name "Royalton," and was sent to "Long John" Wentworth, the Member of Con- gress. Upon examination it appeared that an office with that name already existed in the State, and without further consultation, Went- worth changed the name to Kaneville, which proved so satisfactory that it was adopted for the township name also. R. W. Acres was the first Supervisor of the township in 1850. N. N. Ravlin was elected to this office in 1857, and with two intermissions of only one year each, he was reelected to that most important town office until 1887, serving nearly thirty years; and for over twenty years the Board of Super- visors chose him as its chairman. Governor Oglesby appointed him a member of the State Board of Equalization in 1867-8, and he was a member of the Twenty-eighth General Assem- bly.

In 1852 a hotel was opened here by William Hall, and a store by Mr. Goodwin. Convenient shops, neat churches, school house and town hall, and pleasant homes soon clustered around

715

HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

this central location. The village plat was made in August, 1861, by Thaddeus Hoyt. Mr. F. L. Young, an old settler in Blackberry and Kaneville Townships, has for many years been a resident of this pleasant village. His neigh- bors have kept him busy with public affairs, as Highway Commissioner, Town Clerk, Assessor, School Director, Justice of the Peace, and the like, and the people of the county hold him in such confidence that for seven successive years, from 1879 to 1886, they elected him County Treasurer.

The first death in the township was that of John B. Moore, and the second that of Rev. Thomas Ravlin, on September 6, 1846, who was the first to be buried in the Kaneville ceme- tery.

PLATO TOWNSHIP.

Plato Township embraces Town 41, Range 7, and lies directly west of Elgin and east of Bur- lington. Because of the diverging correctional range line, run by the Government Surveyor between the townships numbered 41 and 42, all its north row of sections, as well as those of Elgin and Burlington, are fractional. Its west line is on the summit of the divide between the Rock and Fox Rivers, and its three or four small spring brooklets, or lowland drains, flow to the creeks emptying into the Fox. They fur- nished in the early days an abundance of good water for household and stock, conveniently distributed over a large portion of the township. Chicken Grove, near the southwest corner, was a body of fine heavy timber, principally oak of several varieties; but there was also considera- ble hickory, maple, black-walnut, and butternut. The old trail of the Indians and of General Scott's army, passed diagonally entirely across it. The general surface is quite level, yet suffic- iently undulating to afford good drainage. The soil is excellent and small tracts of alternating woodland and prairie rendered it an inviting region to the pioneers. Prospecting, doubtless, along the army trail, and probably attracted by the neighboring grove, John Griggs and his son John Griggs, Jr., located claims along the south- west part of Chicken Grove, on land that be- came part of Sections 35 and 36 in this Town- ship, in the summer of 1835. They were up- right, energetic, intelligent men, and they and their descendants have ever been active and

influential in local and county affairs. John Griggs was appointed by Governor Ford one of the judges of the first election in the county in 1836. He was the first Treasurer of the new county, and the first Justice of the Peace in his precinct. He kept the first tavern in the town- ship and at it held the office of first postmaster. John S. Lee, another able and honorable man, just attaining his majority, came during the same year, and located an excellent claim ad- joining Griggs but extending north toward the trail, October 23, 1838. He married Miss Nancy Perry, daughter of Mr. George Perry of Camp- ton-we must remember that there were no townships then, and no surveyed lines of roads or lands-and they were the first couple mar- ried in these settlements. They were each as handsome, in all manly and womanly endow- ment, as one need wish to see. Their son, Abijah A. Lee, born September 4, 1839, was the first white child born in the township. Mr. Lee's original claim of two quarter-sections, was added to, until he owned 940 acres of mag- nificent land. He was first elected Justice of the Peace in 1840, and served nine years. He was first elected Supervisor and served twelve years, and for forty years he served as a School Director. His first son, Abijah A., is now an Assistant Supervisor from Elgin Township. Such records indicate something of the char- acter of the first settlers of the township, and equally strong men have succeeded them. Their first grists were ground near Naperville, and a little later at Boardman's mill south of Ba- tavia, and their tracks to and from the mill marked the route of the stage road from St. Charles toward Galena, beside which Grigg's . tavern long stood. Dr. Latimer S. Tyler and Marcus and John Ranstead-the latter becom- ing in later years a member of the State Leg- islature-came in 1836 and settled on Section 12.

During the period between 1838 and 1840 came Dr. Daniel Pingree, William Hanson, Thomas Burnidge and others. At the general election in 1844 at the "Washington Precinct," which included Plato, we find the following voters registered: John Griggs, John Griggs, Jr., John S. Lee, Joseph S. Burdick, Lemuel Wolsey, Solomon Ellis, Morris Gutchis, Par- don Taber, George W. Spruce, Thomas Matte- son, James Ingalls, Charles Thrall, George P. Harvey, Edward Burnidge, Thomas Burnidge, Edward Burnidge, Jr., Stephen Archer, Michael

715-7

716

HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.

Detro, Mark Ranstead, James Mitchell, Solo- mon Ellis, Jr., A. W. Hodge, John S. Lee, Na- thaniel Ladd, James Morey, William S. Peck, Benjamin Hall, William D. Peck, James Brown, Baldwin Wright, Josiah Mitchell, Alson Banker, Thomas Clark, Solomon Wright, Benjamin Fuller, Benjamin F. Gage, Harvey Gage, Mar- ley Gage, William Sanders and Lorenzo Mitch- ell. This was so soon after the "land sale" that these can well be named as old settlers. As the voting precincts were arranged in 1836. the lands of this township lay in Pleasant Grove, Lake and Sandusky Precincts. It became a part of Fairfield in 1840 and of Washington in 1843. Later it was called Homer, and, at the final adjustment of Congressional townships, it became Plato. The name seems pleasant to the people, for every hamlet of the township ever has been and is "Plato" something-thus Plato Center, North Plato, Plato Corners and East Plato. It is a fine prosperous dairy town- ship. The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Rail- road cuts across the northeast corner, and Mc- Queen Station, with its tile factory, is just within its limits. Pingree Grove, with its brick and tile yards, is just over the border in Rutland Township, and East Plato and Plato Center are thriving stations on the Chicago Great Western Railroad, which follows the gen- eral line of the old army trail diagonally across the township. Its first school was taught by Charlotte Griggs in 1840, at Plato Corners, down on the old stage road on Section 35. The first church organization was the Methodist, and they were holding services in the com- bined school house and town hall at Plato Cen- ter as early as 1848.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Kane County, Part 141

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