USA > Illinois > DuPage County > History of Du Page County, Illinois (Historical, Biographical) > Part 22
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69
165
MILTON TOWNSHIP.
leaves a broader chasm in the home circle and in the neighborhood.
The same year, 1835, William D. Dodge, from Rutland County, Vt., came to the settle- ment and made a claim adjoining Babcock's, his family arriving the following October. It was no small acquisition to the settlement, for he had four sons and nine daughters, all of whom settled at the plece. The names of the sons were N. Mason, Darwin D., William B. and J. S. It is not so necessary to name the girls, for they soon became identified by other names of a more masculine and less transient type, in which capacity they lent a hand in building up the country.
Warren L. and Jesse C. Wheaton, Erastus Gary, Peter Crosby, S. H. Manchester, Al- vin Simmons, Peter Northrup, all came to this township soon afterward, and all of them are still active men, which would go to show that half a century in Milton Township had not tasked nature to her extreme limits, with- out counting how much wear and tear these gentlemen had before they came here with ripe growth in their limbs. These specimens, together with other evidences, go to show the healthfulness of the place. Its surface drainage is good, there being no extensive flat lands in the township, though a nar- row belt of low interval skirts the East Branch of the Du Page River that courses through the eastern tier of sections in this township.
These low lands are not built on, but serve for pasturage or meadow, being too spongy for cultivation. There are groves of good timber in the southwestern and central east- ern and northeastern portions of the town- ship, which have, even up to this day, large- ly furnished fuel for farmers and townsmen, besides much material for building, fencing, etc. The gravel banks along the railroad west of the Du Page are very valuable, and
furnish the necessary material for graveling the railroad.
Milton has eight school districts and as many good schoolhouses, two of which are graded. The number of persons between the ages of six and twenty in the town is 468.
In the western part of the town, at Pleas- ant Hill, is a creamery that consumes 4,000 pounds of milk, makes 120 pounds of butter and 350 pounds of cheese daily. The dairy business is on the increase in the town, owing, especially, to the facilities which the railroad affords for sending milk to Chicago.
THE MASTODON.
To trace the history of this noble animal since the timbers of Noah's ark cringed be- neath his ponderous tread, would take us through many evolutions of nature ere his offspring found their way into Du Page County. That he finally chose his pasture here is an evidence that it was then as now a good grazing country, for he was an herb- eating animal. His teeth give evidence of that and further prove that if he did not find grass enough to fill his capacious stomach, that he could crop the little twigs from the trees, or eat the trees themselves level to the ground, if they were young forest trees not over twenty feet high, for what were such saplings between teeth that weighed from two to six pounds each, twenty-four in num- ber. Some of them were fashioned like pruning-shears; his tusks were ten feet in length, ten inches in diameter at the base and weighed 200 pounds. These are the dimen- sions and weight of a pair of them found near Aurora a few years ago, while excavating for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Rail- road. Later in the fall of 1869, the bones of one fore leg, sixteen sections of vertebrae, shoulder-blade and hip-bone of this extinct species were found on the land of Mr. Horace
166
HISTORY OF DU PAGE COUNTY.
Jane, two miles from Wheaton. The prob- lem is, When did this animal leave his foot- prints on our soil ? Lyell says that they be- came extinct many thousand years ago, but it is evident that he had not consulted Mr. Jayne, for he could have given him evdience that would have dispelled such a theory.
Mr. Jayne says he found the bones in a comparatively recently filled-up basin of water, imbedded in murky accretions from its surrounding water-shed. Near the bones were small tree trunks still standing with their roots pierced into the solid soil below the black muck that covered and preserved them. This don't look like the work of "many thousand years," for this process of the filling up of prairie ponds is still going on, and much of nature's handiwork in this direction has been done within the memory of our early settlers. No; we may conclude that not more than five centuries ago at most that herds of mastodons frisked about here like lambs in a June pasture. Perhaps they grazed the timber all down where the prairies are, and providentially left the groves for winter pasture. If this settles the ques- tion of the origin of the prairies, it will save archæologists a good deal of hard study.
HISTORY OF THE VILLAGE OF WHEATON.
Amidst the "banks and braes " of Wiud- ham County, Conn., there grew up some note- worthy historical associations. The place was settled in 1686 by good old Puritan stock from Roxbury, Mass., whose influence is felt to-day in the social circles of Wheaton, though transmitted through not less than six genera- tions. From Pomfret, in that county, came the first settlers of Wheaton, whose courage and ambition may have been toned up to a good scale by the proximity of their birth- place to the cave where Gen. Putnam bearded the wolf in his lair and slew him, which was
quite a feat for a young man not accustomed, like the old Romans, to play the gladiator. From near the spot where this event had transpired, Erastas Gary came to St. Joseph, Mich., in the autumn of 1831. Here he found a prosperous village, containing about twenty-five families, with sufficient attractions to determine him to remain for the winter to teach the town school and await what might turn up. The next spring, having determined to see what was on the other side of the lake, he started, April 1, 1832, with three compan- ions, in a dugout canoe for Chicago, which was then the usual method of private travel between the two places. Constant toiling at the oars along the southern shores of Lake Michigan, with two nights spent in camp thereon, brought the travelers to Chicago ou the 3d, and here Mr. Gary only spent the night, for the place looked far less inviting thau St. Joseph. " Westward ho!" was the watchword the next morning, and, after taking leave of his companions, he took up his march toward sunset and gained Law- ton's, on the Desplaines, at night, after a day of amphibious toil, sometimes for miles through water a foot deep. The next day, he reached Naperville, which was on the 5th. From thence he made his way northwardly, and took up a claim at first adjoining the claim of Mr. Butterfield, some years before the spot where Wheaton now is become his residence.
That there would have been a village at or not far from where Wheaton now stands is certain in any event, but how it came to be located in this precise spot, and how it took its name, grew out of the following circum- stantial details.
Warren L. Wheaton, whose limbs had gathered pith and whose fires of youth had been fanned to manhood's flame, around the old classic grounds of Pomfret (his birth-
167
MILTON TOWNSHIP.
place), as well as Mr. Gary's, came to the Gary settlement June 1, 1837, to which E. Gary, his fellow-townsman, had preceded him. Ever since the Black Hawk war, set- tlers had been actively employed in making claims, especially contiguous to the Naper settlement, and the lands where timber and prairie were conbined in desirable propor- tions, were all under the bonds of claims, which were sacred as deeds, at least till the land had come into market, and long enough thereafter to give the respective claimants a reasonable time to pay for them.
The amount of land to which the Garys and Butterfields had laid claim was much larger than they wished for their own use, and had designedly been made so for the purpose of letting their friends and old fel- low-citizens from Pomfret have a portion of it. Notwithstanding this propitious chance of settling here, young Wheaton had a desire to look farther west before he made a de- cision, which, as the result proved, was to establish him for life. Accordingly, he started on foot over the open prairies, in a south westerly direction. sometimes getting a ride by stage or otherwise, and in his wan- derings visited St. Louis, Quincy and Bur- lington. At the latter place was only two houses. Keeping on up the river, he saw Dubuque, when it had but a few houses, and Galena, when there were only a small cluster of buildings at the place. From this place, he turned his course homeward, or to what afterward became his home, but between which spot and himself lay an immense plain of waving grasses, almost entirely unin- habited. Dixon was his first point to reach, to which a well-known trail led and also con- tinued on to the east, the main line leading to Ottawa and a branch of it to Naperville. Over this prairie trail he traveled on foot, and by time he had returned, was in a suit-
able frame of mind to cast his lot with his friends, among the undulating swells of land where he now resides. Perhaps his long stretches of marching between the stopping stations and his tired limbs, had something to do with this decision, but yet the distant hope that Chicago would rise out of the mud and become at least a good market for prod- ure was then in the minds of every one, and had its influence with Mr. Wheaton.
A year had now been spent in prospecting. pending which time a Mr. Knickerbocker had come to the place, and, liking the lay of the land where the Garys and L. Butterfield had made a claim, either unwittingly or through design, came to the spot with an ox team and began to turn over the sod. Thirty acres were plowed before he was discovered, when intelligence of the trespass came to the Garys and Mr. Butterfield. Something must be done immediately, and it was planned by the aggrieved party promptly to repair to the spot with a team rigged to a plow, and com- mence breaking the sod by following the fur- rows already made by the claim-juniper, as Mr. Knickerbocker then was looked upon to be. Thus the two rival interested parties contin- ued at their work, without saying a word, and, as they went round after round on the same land, determination gathered force. Knickerbocker was the first to raise the flag of truce, which he did substantially by com- ing to the Gary party to hold a parley.
During this eventful parlance, young War- ren Wheaton, who was a looker-on, took the Gary team and hastened to the next rise of land to the east, where no claim had yet been made, and plowed around about 640 acres or more to secure it to himself before Knicker- bocker could have time to do it, for Mr. Wheaton well knew that he would be driven from the grounds of Gary or Butterfield. and felt almost certain that he would claim
168
HISTORY OF DU PAGE COUNTY.
the next adjoining land, to which he now was making good hisown claims. While Mr. Wheaton was doing this, the dispute was ad- justed by paying Mr. Knickerbocker $120 for his service in plowing the land, of which there were thirty acres-a happy way of set- tling the affair, and a generous one on the part of the defendants, for claim-jumping then was a serious offense, and if condign punishment was meted out for it, there was no one to question its justice or propriety. By this time, Jesse Wheaton, who had arrived in the country a few months subsequent to his brother Warren, was on the spot, and the disputed territory to which Knickerbocker had laid claim, was promptly transferred to him by his paying for the plowing, which he did
Perhaps this finale to these negotiations was a sort of " all-in-the-family " arrange- ment, for the tradition says that it was then supposed that Jesse felt a gentleness toward Orinda, the sister of E. and J. Gary. the truth of which is confirmed by the subsequent marriage of the two, and it is not too much to say here that this marriage so promptly made verifies the assertion that Cupid is more unerring in his darts in new countries, for nowadays many long courtships terminate in failures.
These are the circumstances which brought the two Wheaton brothers to the place where each now live, and for whom the town was named. That they came may be set down, perhaps, as the result of rivalry or ambition to secure a claim ahead of Mr. Knickerbocker, and that the town took its name for them, is, perhaps, the result of a friendly dinner.
The circumstances are these: When John B. Turner and William B. Ogden came through the place, in 1849, prospecting for a route and the right of way for the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, they had met but
slender encouragement from the settlers im- mediately east of this place, then without a name. Not that the inhabitants objected to the road, but they showed a disposition to avail themselves of the occasion to get a round price for the land needed for its construction. Instead of taking any such advantage, the Wheatons were in full sympathy with these representatives of the road, offered them the right of way gratis, and invited the two gen- tlemen to dinner. Whether it was this din- ner, which was doubtless a good one, or the free gift of land. or both combined, that in- fluenced the managers of the road to put the station here and name the place Wheaton, will never be known, but certain it is that no amount of finessing and subtlety on the part of rival localities, which immediately ensued, could change the firm purposes of Messrs. Turner and Ogden. They were true to their first love and resisted all the blandishments of coquetry that followed from whithersoever it came.
Mr. Jewell went so far as to build a depot at an expense of $400, so situated as to bring the road near to his land, the same now known as Jewell's Grove, but it had no effect.
Dissatisfaction also prevailed in other lo- calities where apathy had existed but a short time before, ere the people had awakened to the importance of the subject ..
But let us return to trace the first settlers who came to the place after the Wheatons had set their stakes here. The three next were Peter Crosby, who now lives next door east of the house of the writer; S. H. Man- chester, who now lives close by Wheaton, and Avin Simmons, who still lives at the place. These five first settlers are all our esteemed fellow-citizens to-day, July, 1882, after a residence of almost half a century, and all able to attend to their daily avocations with their accustomed promptness. To them
169
MILTON TOWMSHIP.
may be added Erastus Geary and Henry T Wilson, both of whom are citizens of Wheat- on, and came to the county several years be- fore the first five named, but not to Wheaton till many had preceded them. Both these gentlemen are well known throughout the country. Mr. Gary is still an active mem- ber of society, taking an interest in all the issues that affect the welfare of our country, but Mr. Wilson, now within a few weeks of ninety-four years old, has passed his age of utility, though he still sometimes walks the streets and bids good morning to his old friends, of which he has countless numbers.
There are many others venerable with age and honors, but the mention of whose names does not belong with a list of first settlers, because they came later to the county.
In the fall of 1849, the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad laid their track through the place. and thence to Elgin, and built a depot here, if poles set in the ground to sustain a roof of battened boards and sides, fashioned in the same manner. deserves such a name. The track consisted of strap iron spiked on wooden scantling, on which rickety old sec- ond-hand engines ran at slow rates: but this means of transportation, though defective. was better than the bottomless sloughs that intervened between Wheaton and Chicago.
The first store built here was a grocery. Who ever heard of any other kind of a store as a pioneer effort in a new country? Its very name sometimes meant that you could buy from its proprietor Kentucky Twist or Kentucky Bourbon, or something else more fiery, and it also meant that the way-worn traveler could find entertainment with a good solid bed to sleep in, if the bedstead which held it did not break down, and that he could luxuriate on nutritious corn-bread for supper and breakfast. This is what the pioneer grocery in a new country frequently meant,
and the one opened here by Patrick Lynch justified the reputation of these primitive es- tablishments, especially those who played " Hamlet without the character of Hamlet." The next store was not a grocery store. that is, Kentucky Bourbon was not kept in it, al- though it kept tea, coffee and sugar and everything that sober people wanted from a penny whistle to a bass drum, to use a com- parison. It was a country store, and Mr. H. H. Fuller was its proprietor; he, at the same time, kept a hotel, was Postmaster, kept the depot and a stage office, all of which callings have grown into larger dimensions than one man could attend to, except the stage office, which is now one of the extinct institutions. like the relics of mastodons that were dug up on the land of Mr. Jaynes, adjacent to Wheaton.
Mr. Fuller has now enough to do to attend to the depot, of which he still has the charge. His old store stood where the Central Hotel now stands, immediately south of the depot.
The first man here who followed that occu- pation to which Elihu Burritt lent so much honor (that of a blacksmith), was Mr. Worm- with; his shop stood where the store of Messrs. Grotte Bros. now stands. and was erected in 1850. Mr. Wormwith, a few years later, died with consumption. The ware- house now occupied by Messrs. Sutcliffe & Kelly was built the same year as the black- smith shop -- 1850-by E. Gary and the Wheatons.
On the 20th of June, 1853, the southeast quarter of Section 16, Township 36, Range 10, having been laid out in streets, by W. L. Wheaton, J. C. Wheaton and others, a plat of it was duly recorded as the village of Wheaton.
From this period to 1859, the town grew apace, so as to contain not less than seven or eight hundred inhabitants. It was, however,
170
HISTORY OF DU PAGE COUNTY.
stigmatized as "Wheaton's Mud-Hole" by some rival localities-a name, it must be con- fessed, not unmerited in the early spring or during excessive wet weather in its primitive days, when a mud blockade kept the people at home oftentimes when pressing necessities urged locomotion.
Stimulated by these unfavorable conditions, the prominent citizens of the place saw the necessities of improving the streets and drain- ing the slonghs and ponds, of which there were many, and, after conferring together, decided that the true interests of the town required an act of incorporation, in order to enforce a system of public improvements. Accordingly, a charter was drawn up by the United Council of the representative men of the place, taking the charter of Naperville as a model, with but two modifications, the first of which was that the President of the Coun- cil Board should not be admitted as a mem- ber of the Board of Supervisors of the county, and the second was that the Council Board should have the power to license or suppress the sale of fermented or distilled liquors of all kinds. It was stipulated by the charter as follows: "The first election shall be held on the third Monday of March, A. D. 1859, and Erastus Gary, L. J. Bliss, Seth F. Dan- iels and J. C. Wheaton, or any two of them, may act as Judges of said election. This act to be in force from and after its passage." Approved February 24, 1859.
The north half of the southwest quarter and the west half of the southeast quarter of Section 16, the south half of the northeast quarter and the east half of the southeast quarter of Section 17, Township 39, Range 10, east of the Third Principal Meridian, were the lands comprised in the charter.
The second charter of Wheaton, the one under whose authority the Council now acts, was approved March 11, 1869. It enlarged
the limits of the town, so as to include in all the whole of Section 16 and the southeast quarter and south half of the northeast quar- ter of Section 17, and the south half of the south half of Section 9, and the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 10, and the west half of the northeast quarter and the northwest quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 15, same township and range as the first description.
The third article of the charter provided that the first Monday in each year should be the day of annual election for town officers, which officers should consist of a Council Board of five-that a Justice of the Peace and a Constable should be elected biennially on the same day of each alternate year, and that the Council Board shall have power to appoint a Clerk, Treasurer, Assessor and Street Commissioner. The office of Assessor is now discontinued, as the Township Assess- or aets in his place and the Treasurer of the village corporation is elected by popular vote instead of being appointed by the board.
A liberal system of public improvements has been inaugurated in Wheaton as the permanent policy of the town. First, the streets were piked up with dirt from ditches each side, ponds drained by tiling, and stone eulverts built, but these improvements were found insufficient to make the streets pass- able in early spring, or during seasons of rain and warm weather in the winter, and it was determined to grade them with gravel, which fortunately abounds in various places near by. This work was begun in June, 1877, and, July 16, 1880. a gravel pit was bought of E. H. Gary, for $400, which gives promise of an abundant supply of this material so essential to the wants of the town.
Of the manufacturing interest of Wheaton. little need be said. In the summer of 1856, Peter Northrup built a grist-mill, with two
file Wheaton Den
4
173
MILTON TOWNSHIP.
run of stones propelled by steam power, to which a planing-mill was also attached. It fulfilled his expectations until it was burned down, in December, 1858. It stood north of the blacksmith shop of August Michels, across the street. About the same time this grist mill was built, a carriage factory was erected just west of it by Avery Chadwick, with steam-pow- er for machinery. H. C. Childs, who came to Wheaton in 1855, full of ambitious ideas, bought out this establishinent, in 1859, and employed about fifteen hands in it in the manufacture of locomotive vehicles for chil- dren and babies, for which there was quite a good home market in such a fruitful country as Wheaton and its surroundings. This building burned down in 1861, but the de- mand for baby carriages kept on increasing, notwithstanding. In this emergency, Mr. Childs went to work immediately to build another factory, the site of which was across the street south of the Methodist Church. It was finished in 1862, and the same business went on it till the supply of baby carts was ahead of the demand, for there is a limit to the rate of animated reproduction. Mr. Childs now bought the ground now occupied by the Kelly Block, where formerly stood a fine hotel owned by Mr. Kinney (which had been burnt in 1861) and here he erected the building which now stands on the spot, and it is worthy of notice that he established the grade of Wheaton business streets by elevat- ing his sidewalk several feet above the old grade. The next attempt at manufacturing here was by R. Blanchard, who established a map factory in the Bedel Block, opposite the depot, in the autumn of 1871. In a few weeks the building burned. and Mr. Blanch- ard transferred his business to other quar- ters, and ultimately, to his own premises, on the grounds of his homestead. On the spot made vacant by the burning of the Bedel
Block was built the Central Block, in 1875 It is the principal business block of the town, containing ample stores and basements, with a fine hall and offices above.
Had none of these establishments been burned, it is hardly to be supposed that Wheaton would ever have attained notoriety as a manufacturing town, for the reason that no streams of living water run through it. but its eligible situation as a place of resi- dence commends it to those wishing a home in a healthy locality among intelligent and thrifty people. The houses in the town are ample distances apart to insure a free circula- tion of air between each, and, in consequence of the college having been located at the eastern extremity of the town. and the grad- ed schoolhouse at the western, its area pre- sents tangent points in each respective direc- tion.
For a place of its size, few have such an extended reputation, and it is well known that its fame is due to the tenacious religious connections, not only of its leading men. but of its every-day sort of people, who follow the ordinary occupations of life. This is evident from the fact that there are eight churches here which support regular preach- ing, and at least four more kinds of religions beliefs, too weak in numbers to have churches and preaching, but not too luke-warm in their religious feelings to keep alive in their hearts and consciences fidelity to their principles, and it is proper here to add that the univer- sal charity that the necessity of religious sentiment has imparted to the place, has thrown its mantel ovor all who act out relig- ion whatever they do or do not profess; and it is historically due to Wheaton to say that a citizen will be equally respected here if he does or does not help support any religious faith, other things being equal.
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.