Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of St. Clair County, Volume I, Part 63

Author: Bateman, Newton, 1822-1897. ed. cn; Selby, Paul, 1825-1913. jt. ed. cn; Wilderman, Alonzo St. Clair, 1839-1904, ed; Wilderman, Augusta A., jt. ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Chicago : Munsell Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 698

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bore a conspicuous part in securing the location of the State Fair at Springfield in 1894, and the improvements there made under his administra- tion have not been paralleled in any other State. Originally, and up to 1856, an old-line Whig, Colonel Judy has since been an ardent Repub- lican ; and though active in political campaigns. has never held a political office nor desired one, being content with the discharge of his duty as a patriotic private citizen.

KANAN, Michael F., soldier and legislator, was born in Essex County, N. Y., in November, 1837, at twenty years of age removed to Macon County, Ill., and engaged in farming. During the Civil War he enlisted in the Forty-first Illinois Volun- teers (Col. I. C. Pugh's regiment), serving nearly four years and retiring with the rank of Captain. After the war he served six years as Mayor of the city of Decatur. In 1894 he was elected State Senator, serving in the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth General Assemblies. Captain Kanan was one of the founders of the Grand Army of the Republic, and a member of the first Post of the order ever established-that at Decatur.

KANE, a village of Greene County, on the Jacksonville Division of the Chicago & Alton Railway, 40 miles south of Jacksonville. It has a bank and a weekly paper. Population (1880), 408; (1890), 551; (1900), 588.

KANE, Elias Kent, early United States Sena- tor, is said by Lanman's "Dictionary of Congress" to have been born in New York, June 7, 1796. The late Gen. Geo. W. Smith, of Chicago, a rela- tive of Senator Kane's by marriage, in a paper read before the Illinois State Bar Associatior (1895), rejecting other statements assigning the date of the Illinois Senator's birth to various years from 1786 to 1796, expresses the opinion, based on family letters, that he was really born in 1794. He was educated at Yale College, gradu- ating in 1812, read law in New York, and emi- grated to Tennessee in 1813 or early in 1814, but, before the close of the latter year, removed to Illi- nois, settling at Kaskaskia. His abilities were recognized by his appointment, early in 1818, as Judge of the eastern circuit under the Territorial Government. Before the close of the same year he served as a member of the first State Consti- tutional Convention, and was appointed by Gov- ernor Bond the first Secretary of State under the new State Government, but resigned on the accession of Governor Coles in 1822. Two years later he was elected to the General Assembly as Representative from Randolph County, but

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resigned before the close of the year to accept a seat in the United States Senate, to which he was elected in 1824, and re-elected in 1830. Before the expiration of his second term (Dec. 12, 1835), having reached the age of a little more than 40 years, he died in Washington, deeply mourned by his fellow-members of Congress and by lis constituents. Senator Kane was a cousin of the distinguished Chancellor Kent of New York, through his mother's family, while, on his father's side, he was a relative of the celebrated Arctic explorer, Elisha Kent Kane.

KANE COUNTY, one of the wealthiest and most progressive counties in the State, situated in the nortlieastern quarter. It has an area of 540 square miles, and population (1900) of 78,792; was named for Senator Elias Kent Kane. Tim- ber and water are abundant, Fox River flowing through the county from north to south. Immi- gration began in 1833, and received a new impetus in 1835, when the Pottawatomies were removed west of the Mississippi. A school was established in 1834, and a church organized in 1835. County organization was effected in June, 1836, and the public lands came on the market in 1842. The Civil War record of the county is more than creditable, the number of volunteers exceeding the assessed quota. Farming, grazing, manufac- turing and dairy industries chiefly engage the attention of the people. The county has many flourishing cities and towns. Geneva is the county- seat. (See Aurora, Dundee, Eldora, Elgin, Genera and St. Charles.)

KANGLEY, a village of La Salle County, on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway, three miles northwest of Streator. There are several coal shafts here. Population (1900), 1,004.

KANKAKEE, a city and county-seat of Kanka- kee County, on Kankakee River and Ill. Cent. Railroad, at intersection of the "Big Four" witlı the Indiana, Ill. & Iowa Railroad, 56 miles south of Chicago. It is an agricultural and stock-raising region, near extensive coal fields and bog iron ore; has water-power, flour and paper mills, agri- cultural implement, furniture, and piano fac- tories, knitting and novelty works, besides two quarries of valuable building stone. The East- ern Hospital for the Insane is located liere. There are four papers, four banks, five schools, water-works, gas and electric light, electric car lines, and Government postoffice building. Popu- lation (1890), 9,025; (1900), 13,595.

KANKAKEE COUNTY, a wealthy and popu- lous county in the northeast section of the State, having an area of 680 square miles-receiving its

name from its principal river. It was set apart from Will and Iroquois Counties under the act passed in 1851, the owners of the site of the present city of Kankakee contributing $5,000 toward the erection of county buildings. Agri- culture, manufacturing and coal-mining are the principal pursuits. The first white settler was one Noah Vasseur, a Frenchman, and the first American, Thomas Durham. Population (1880), 25,047; (1890), 28,732; (1900), 37,154.

KANKAKEE RIVER, a sluggish stream, rising in St. Joseph County, Ind., and flowing west- southwest through English Lake and a flat marshy. region, into Illinois. In Kankakee County it unites with the Iroquois from the south and the Des Plaines from the north, after the junction with the latter, taking the name of the Illinois.

KANKAKEE & SENECA RAILROAD, a line lying wholly in Illinois, 42.08 miles in length. It has a capital stock of $10,000, bonded debt of $630,000 and other forms of indebtedness (1895) reaching $557,629; total capitalization, $1,217,629. This road was chartered in 1881, and opened in 1882. It connects with the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, and the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, and is owned jointly by these two lines, but operated by the former. (See Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Rail- road.)

KANSAS, a village in Edgar County, on the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis and the Chicago & Ohio River Railways, 156 miles northeast of St. Louis, 104 miles west of Indian- apolis, 13 miles east of Charleston and 11 miles west-southwest of Paris. The surrounding region is agricultural and stock-raising. Kansas has tile works, two grain elevators, a canning factory, and railway machine shops, beside four churches, a collegiate institute, a National bank and a weekly newspaper. Population (1880), 723; (1890), 1,037; (1900), 1,049.

KASKASKIA, a village of the Illinois Indians, and later a French trading post, first occupied in 1700. It passed into the hands of the British after the French-Indian War in 1765, and was captured by Col. George Rogers Clark, at the head of a force of Virginia troops, in 1778. (See Clark, George Rogers.) At that time the white inhab- itants were almost entirely of French descent. The first exercise of the elective franchise in Illi- nois occurred here in the year last named, and, in 1804, the United States Government opened a land office there. For many years the most important commercial town in the Territory, it remained the Territorial and State capital down

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to 1819, when the seat of government was re- moved to Vandalia. Originally situated on the west side of the Kaskaskia River, some six miles from the Mississippi, early in 1899 its site had been swept away by the encroachments of the latter stream, so that all that is left of the princi- pal town of Illinois, in Territorial days, is simply its name.

KASKASKIA INDIANS, one of the five tribes constituting the Illinois confederation of Algon- quin Indians. About the year 1700 they removed from what is now La Salle County, to Southern Illinois, where they establislied themselves along the banks of the river whichi bears their name. They were finally removed, with their brethren of the Illinois, west of the Mississippi, and, as a distinct tribe, have become extinct.

KASKASKIA RIVER, rises in Champaign County, and flows southwest through the coun- ties of Douglas, Coles, Moultrie, Shelby, Fayette, Clinton and St. Clair, thence southward through Randolph, and empties into the Mississippi River near Chester. It is nearly 300 miles long, and flows through a fertile, undulating country, which forms part of the great coal field of the State.

KEITH, Edson, Sr., merchant and manufac- turer, born at Barre, Vt., Jan. 28, 1833, was edu- cated at home and in the district schools; spent 1850-54 in Montpelier, coming to Chicago the latter year and obtaining employment in a retail dry-goods store. In 1860 he assisted in establish- ing the firm of Keith, Faxon & Co., now Edson Keith & Co .; is also President of the corporation of Keith Brothers & Co., a Director of the Metro- politan National Bank, and the Edison Electric Light Company .- Elbridge G. (Keith), banker, brother of the preceding, was born at Barre, Vt., July 16, 1840; attended local schools and Barre Academy ; came to Chicago in 1857, the next year taking a position as clerk in the liouse of Keith, Faxon & Co., in 1865 becoming a partner and, in 1884, being chosen President of the Metropolitan National Bank, where he still remains. Mr. Keith was a member of the Republican National Convention of 1880, and belongs to several local literary, political and social clubs; was also one of the Directors of the World's Columbian Expo- sition of 1892-93.

KEITHSBURG, a town in Mercer County on the Mississippi River, at the intersection of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy and the Iowa Cen- tral Railways; 100 miles west-northwest of Peoria. Principal industries are fisheries, ship- ping, manufacture of pearl buttons and oilers ; has one paper. Pop. (1900), 1,566; (1903, est.), 2,000.

KELLOGG, Hiram Huntington, clergyman and educator, was born at Clinton (then Whites- town), N. Y., in February, 1803, graduated at Hamilton College and Auburn Seminary, after which he served for some years as pastor at various places in Central New York. Later, he established the Young Ladies' Domestic Seminary at Clinton, claimed to be the first ladies' semi- nary in the State, and the first experiment in the country uniting manual training of girls with scholastic instruction, antedating Mount Hol- yoke, Oberlin and other institutions which adopted this system. Color was no bar to admission to the institution, though the daughters of some of the wealthiest families of the State were among its pupils. Mr. Kellogg was a co-laborer with Gerritt Smith, Beriah Green, the Tappans, Garri- son and others, in the effort to arouse public senti- ment in opposition to slavery. In 1836 he united with Prof. George W. Gale and others in the movement for the establishment of a colony and the building up of a Christian and anti-slavery institution in the West, which resulted in the location of the town of Galesburg and the found. ing there of Knox College. Mr. Kellogg was chosen the first President of the institution and, in 1841, left his thriving school at Clinton to identify himself with the new enterprise, which, in its infancy, was a manual-labor school. In the West he soon became the ally and co-laborer of such men as Owen Lovejoy, Ichabod Codding, Dr. C. V. Dyer and others, in the work of extirpat- ing slavery. In 1843 he visited England as a member of the World's Peace Convention, re- maining abroad about a year, during whichlı time he made the acquaintance of Jacob Bright and others of the most prominent men of that day in England and Scotland. Resigning the Presidency of Knox College in 1847, he returned to Clinton Seminary, and was later engaged in various busi- ness enterprises until 1861, when he again re- moved to Illinois, and was engaged in preaching and teaching at various points during the remainder of his life, dying suddenly, at his home school at Mount Forest, Ill., Jan. 1, 1881.

KELLOGG, William Pitt, was born at Orwell, Vt., Dec. 8, 1831, removed to Illinois in 1848, studied law at Peoria, was admitted to the bar in 1854, and began practice in Fulton County. He was a candidate for Presidential Elector on the Republican ticket in 1856 and 1860, being elected the latter year. Appointed Chief Justice of Nebraska in 1861, he resigned to accept the colonelcy of the Seventh Illinois Cavalry. Fail- ing health caused his retirement from the army

1 .- Old Kaskaskia from Garrison Hill (1893). 2 .- Kaskaskia Hotel where Lafayette was feted in 1825. 3 .- First Illinois State House. 1SIS. 4 .- Interior of Room (1893) where Lafayette banquet was held. 5 .- Pierre Menard Mansion. 6 .- House of Chief Ducoign, last of the Cascasquais ( Kas- kaskias).

1 .- Remnant of Old Kaskaskia (1898). 2 .- View on Principal Street (1891). 3 .- Gen. John Ed- gar's House (1891). 4 .- House of Gov. Bond (1891). 5 .- "Chenu Mansion" where LaFayette was entertained, as it appeared in 1898. 6 .- Old State House (1900).

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after the battle of Corinth. In 1865 he was appointed Collector of the Port at New Orleans. Thereafter he became a conspicuous figure in both Louisiana and National politics, serving as United States Senator from Louisiana from 1868 to 1871, and as Governor from 1872 to 1876, during the stormiest period of reconstruction, and mak- ing hosts of bitter personal and political enemies as well as warm friends. An unsuccessful attempt was made to impeach him in 1876. In 1877 he was elected a second time to the United States Senate by one of two rival Legislatures, being awarded his seat after a bitter contest. At the close of his term (1883) he took his seat in the lower house to which he was elected in 1882, serving until 1885. While retaining his residence in Louisiana, Mr. Kellogg has spent much of his time of late years in Washington City.

KENDALL COUNTY, a northeastern county, with an area of 330 square miles and a population (1900) of 11,467. The surface is rolling and the soil fertile, although generally a light, sandy loam. The county was organized in 1841, out of parts of Kane and La Salle, and was named in honor of President Jackson's Postmaster-General. The Fox River (running southwestwardly through the county), with its tributaries, affords ample drainage and considerable water power; the railroad facilities are admirable; timber is abundant. Yorkville and Oswego have been rivals for the county-seat, the distinction finally resting with the former. Among the pioneers may be mentioned Messrs. John Wilson, Ed- ward Ament, David Carpenter, Samuel Smith, the Wormley and Pierce brothers, and E. Morgan.

KENDRICK, Adin A., educator, was born at Ticonderoga, N. Y., Jan. 7, 1836; educated at Granville Academy, N. Y., and Middlebury Col- lege; removed to Janesville, Wis., in 1857, studied law and began practice at Monroe, in that State, a year later removing to St. Louis, where he con- tinued practice for a short time. Then, having abandoned the law, after a course in the Theolog- ical Seminary at Rochester, N. Y., in 1861 he became pastor of the North Baptist Church in Chicago, but, in 1865, removed to St. Louis, where he remained in pastoral work until 1872, when he assumed the Presidency of Shurtleff College at Upper Alton, Ill.

KENNEY, a village and railway station in Dewitt County, at the intersection of the Spring- field Division of the Illinois Central and the Peoria, Decatur & Evansville Railroads, 36 miles northeast of Springfield. The town has two banks

and two newspapers; the district is agricultural. Population (1880), 418; (1890), 497; (1900), 584.

KENT, (Rev.) Aratus, pioneer and Congrega- tional missionary, was born in Suffield, Conn, in 1794, educated at Yale and Princeton and, in 1829, as a Congregational missionary, came to the Galena lead mines-then esteemed "a place so hard no one else would take it." In less than two years he had a Sunday-school with ten teachers and sixty to ninety scholars, and had also estab- lished a day-school, which he conducted himself. In 1831 he organized the First Presbyterian Church of Galena, of which he remained pastor until 1848, when he became Agent of the Home Missionary Society. He was prominent in laying the foundations of Beloit College and Rockford Female Seminary, meanwhile contributing freely from his meager salary to charitable purposes. Died at Galena, Nov. 8, 1869.

KEOKUK, (interpretation, "The Watchful Fox"), a Chief of the Sacs and Foxes, born on Rock River, about 1780. He had the credit of shrewdness and bravery, which enabled him finally to displace his rival, Black Hawk. He always professed ardent friendship for the whites, although this was not infrequently attributed to a far-seeing policy. He earnestly dissuaded Black Hawk from the formation of his confeder- acy, and when the latter was forced to surrender himself to the United States authorities, he was formally delivered to the custody of Keokuk. By the Rock Island treaty, of September, 1832, Keo- kuk was formally recognized as the principal Chief of the Sacs and Foxes, and granted a reser- vation on the Iowa River, 40 miles square. Here he lived until 1845, when he removed to Kansas, where, in June, 1848, he fell a victim to poison, supposedly administered by some partisan of Black Hawk. (See Black Hawk and Black Hawk War.)

KERFOOT, Samuel H., real-estate operator, was born in Lancaster, Pa., Dec. 18, 1823, and educated under the tutorship of Rev. Dr. Muh- lenburg at St. Paul's College, Flushing, Long Island, graduating at the age of 19. He was then associated with a brother in founding St. James College, in Washington County, Md., but, in 1848, removed to Chicago and engaged in the real-estate business, in which he was one of the oldest operators at the time of his death, Dec. 28, 1896. He was one of the founders and a life member of the Chicago Historical Society and of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, and associated with other learned and social organizations. He was also a member of the original Real Estate

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and Stock Board of Chicago and its first Presi- dent.

KEWANEE, a city in Henry County, on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, 131 miles southwest of Chicago. Agriculture and coal-mining are chief industries of the surround- ing country. The city contains eighteen churches, six graded schools, a public library of 10,000 volumes, three national banks, one weekly and two daily papers. It has extensive manufactories employing four to five thousand hands, the out- put including tubing and soil-pipe, boilers, pumps and heating apparatus, agricultural implements, etc. Population (1890), 4,569; (1900), 8,382; (1903, est.), 10,000.

KEYES, Willard, pioneer, was born at New- fane, Windsor County, Vt., Oct. 28, 1792; spent his early life on a farm, enjoying only such edu- cational advantages as could be secured by a few months' attendance on school in winter; in 1817 started west by way of Mackinaw and, crossing Wisconsin (then an unbroken wilderness), finally reached Prairie du Chien, after which he spent a year in the "pineries." In 1819 he descended the Mississippi with a raft, his attention en route being attracted by the present site of the city of Quincy, to which, after two years spent in exten- sive exploration of the "Military Tract" in the interest of certain owners of bounty lands, he again returned, finding it still unoccupied. Then, after two years spent in farming in Pike County, in 1824 he joined his friend, the late Gov. John Wood, who had built the first house in Quincy two years previous. Mr. Keyes thus became one of the three earliest settlers of Quincy, the other two being John Wood and a Major Rose. On the organization of Adams County, in January, 1825, he was appointed a member of the first Board of County Commission- ers, which held its first meeting in his house. Mr. Keyes acquired considerable landed property about Quincy, a portion of which he donated to the Chicago Theological Seminary, thereby fur- nishing means for the erection of "Willard Hall" in connection with that institution. His death occurred in Quincy, Feb. 7, 1872.

KICKAPOOS, a tribe of Indians whose ethi- nology is closely related to that of the Mascou- tins. The French orthography of the word was various, the early explorers designating them as "Kic-a-pous," "Kick-a-poux," "Kick-a-bou," and "Quick-a-pous." The significance of the name is uncertain, different authorities construing it to mean "the otter's foot" and the "rabbit's ghost," according to dialect. From 1602, when the tribe

was first visited by Samuel Champlain, the Kicka- poos were noted as a nation of warriors. They fought against Christianization, and were, for some time, hostile to the French, although they proved efficient allies of the latter during the French and Indian War. Their first formal recognition of the authority of the United States was in the treaty of Edwardsville (1819), in which reference was made to the treaties executed at Vincennes (1805 and 1809). Nearly a century before, they had left their seats in Wisconsin and established villages along the Rock River and near Chicago (1712-15). At the time of the Edwardsville treaty they had settlements in the valleys of the Wabash, Embarras, Kaskaskia, Sangamon and Illinois Rivers. While they fought bravely at the battle of Tippecanoe, their chief military skill lay in predatory warfare. As compared with other tribes, they were industri- ous, intelligent and cleanly. In 1832-33 they were removed to a reservation in Kansas. Thence many of them drifted to the southwest, join- ing roving, plundering bands. In language, manners and customs, the Kickapoos closely resembled the Sacs and Foxes, with whom some ethnologists believe them to have been more or less closely connected.

KILPATRICK, Thomas M., legislator and soldier, was born in Crawford County, Pa., June 1, 1807. He learned the potter's trade, and, at the age of 27, removed to Scott County, Ill. He was a deep thinker, an apt and reflective student of public affairs, and naturally eloquent. He was twice elected to the State Senate (1840 and '44), and, in 1846, was the Whig candidate for Governor, but was defeated by Augustus C. French, Democrat. In 1850 he emigrated to California, but, after a few years, returned to Illinois and took an active part in the campaigns of 1858 and 1860. On the outbreak of the Civil War he was commissioned Colonel of the Twenty- eighth Illinois Volunteers, for which regiment he had recruited a company. He was killed at the battle of Shiloh, April 6, 1862, while leading a charge.

KINDERHOOK, a village and railway station in Pike County, on the Hannibal Division of the Wabash Railway, 13 miles east of Hannibal. Population (1890), 473; (1900), 370.

KING, John Lyle, lawyer, was born in Madison, Ind., in 1825-the son of a pioneer settler who was one of the founders of Hanover College and of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary there, which afterwards became the "Presby- terian Theological Seminary of the Northwest,"

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now the McCormick Theological Seminary of

began the study of law with an uncle at Madison, and the following year was admitted to the bar. In 1852 he was elected to the Indiana Legislature and, while a member of that body, acted as Chair- man of the Committee to present Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot and exile, to the Legisla- ture; also took a prominent part, during the next few years, in the organization of the Republican party. Removing to Chicago in 1856, he soon became prominent in his profession there, and, in 1860, was elected City Attorney over Col. James A. Mulligan, who became eminent a year or two later, in connection with the war for the Union. Hav- ing a fondness for literature, Mr. King wrote much for the press and, in 1878, published a volume of sporting experiences with a party of professional friends in the woods and waters of Northern Wis- consin and Michigan, under the title, "Trouting on the Brule River, or Summer Wayfaring in the Northern Wilderness." Died in Chicago, April 17, 1892.

KING, William H., lawyer, was born at Clifton Park, Saratoga County, N. Y., Oct. 23, 1817; gradu- ated from Union College in 1846, studied law at Waterford and, having been admitted to the bar the following year, began practice at the same place. In 1853 he removed to Chicago, where he held a number of important positions, including the Presidency of the Chicago Law Institute, the Chicago Bar Association, the Chicago Board of Education, and the Union College Alumni Association of the Northwest. In 1870 he was elected to the lower branch of the Twenty- seventh General Assembly, and, during the ses- sions following the fire of 1871 prepared the act for the protection of titles to real estate, made necessary by the destruction of the records in the Recorder's office. Mr. King received the degree of LL.D from his Alma Mater'in 1879. Died, in Chicago, Feb. 6, 1892.

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Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and history of St. Clair County, Volume I, Part 63

Author: Bateman, Newton, 1822-1897. ed. cn; Selby, Paul, 1825-1913. jt. ed. cn; Wilderman, Alonzo St. Clair, 1839-1904, ed; Wilderman, Augusta A., jt. ed Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Chicago : Munsell Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 698

Author: Bateman, Newton, 1822-1897. ed. cn; Selby, Paul, 1825-1913. jt. ed. cn; Wilderman, Alonzo St. Clair, 1839-1904, ed; Wilderman, Augusta A., jt. ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Chicago : Munsell Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 698