USA > Illinois > DuPage County > History of Du Page County, Illinois (Historical, Biographical) > Part 23
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The remarkable cases of longevity here are J
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worthy of mention. Henry T. Wilson, aged ninety-four, now able to go out of doors, but his mind enfeebled and his memory almost gone. He is well known as having been an active and useful pioneer and a thrifty farm- er. Edward W. Brewster is ninety years old; he has seen all our early Presidents, in- cluding President Washington, of whom he still retains a dim recollection, though but a child when he saw him. He has ever been foremost in every good work that appeared before him to be done during his long and useful life. For many years he was a mem- ber of the School Board of Chicago, and his large list of friends are still found among the most intelligent people of that city and other places where his life has been spent. His mind is still bright, and he may be seen al- most any pleasant day at work in his garden.
Mr. and Mrs. Sanford Manchester, each over eighty years old, have lived forty years in Wheaton, and, on the 28th of June, 1882, celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of their wedding-day. They are now enjoying a rea- sonable degree of health.
The elevation of Wheaton at the depot is 166 feet above Lake Michigan, on the rail- road track. From this point, the land grad- mates upward, both to the north and to the south, except in the channel of a slough, which tends to the southwest, and affords a good escapement for surface drainage.
WHEATON COLLEGE.
About the year 1850, a movement was set on foot in the Illinois Annual Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist denomination to es- tablish an institution of learning somewhere in the State of Illinois.
The originators of the scheme were mostly men who had but little of this world's goods and prized learning for the power that they saw it gave others, rather than from any ex-
tensive realization of its benefits in them- selves. They were real reformers, and were especially interested in the anti-slavery strug- gle which was then at its height.
They saw with deep concern the children of anti slavery fathers and mothers, who were sent to college, where nothing was said against human bondage, soon losing their parents' principles and concluding that if slavery were as bad as they had been taught at home to regard it, the teachers they had learned to reverence and love would say some- thing about it.
Their purpose, as his father, who was one of them, has often told the writer, was not so much to start a denominational, sectarian school, as to provide a place where their principles, by them prized and early taught to their children, should not be smothered ont by being held in silence by those who taught or destroyed by the active, despotic teaching of the times. Wheaton, offering the most favorable terms, was chosen as the seat of this school. Preparations for building began by the founders kneeling in the prairie grass on the summit of the beautiful hill now erowned by the stately stone cditice known as Wheaton College building, and dedicated the hill and all that should be upon it to that God in whom trusting they had boldly gone into the thickest of the fight, not only for the freedom of human bodies, but of human souls as well.
Although often being taunted by the enemy with being men of but one idea, and some- times pleading guilty to the charge, their one idea was a grand one, including the whole of man, all his interests for this world and the next.
A plain stone building, two stories above the basement, forty-five feet by seventy five, was first erected at a cost of about$ 10,000. In the basement of which, the upper part be-
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ing yet unfinished, on the 14th of December, 1853, the Illinois Institute, for such was its first name, was opened under the instruction of Rev. John Cross, suceeding whom, the next April, the Rev. C. F. Winship, afterward missionary to Africa, had charge of the same for one year. Subsequently, Rev. G. P. Kim- ball, Miss Pierce and the writer of this consti- tuted the faculty until the opening of the next college year, when Rev. J A. Martling became " Principal of the first collegiate year."
On the opening of the school year, Septem- ber. 1856, Rev. L. C. Matlach, who had been chosen President some years before, entered upon his office. He was preceded a little by Prof. F. G. Baker, who has, till his recent decease, been Professor of Music and Trustee. Also by Dr. Hiatt. The Trustees had sold. chiefly through the agency of Rev. R. F. Markham, for many years Trustee and agent, scholarships to the amount of $21,000, of which the intention was to use only the in- terest. but, in the exigencies of building and keeping up current expenses, some $6,000 of the principal was either invested in a board- ing-hall or used up in paying bills.
This was in part offset by $2,000 or $3,000 of interest on scholarships yet unpaid. An effort was made to replace the money expend- ed by investing all the interest accruing thereafter and making up a fund of $3,200 to run the school for two years, by the faculty giving $200 each from their already very small salaries, and the Trustees giving each a like sum, and securing the balance by sub- scription outside. This plan was only par- tially successful, but served to help the in- stitution along for a time.
Under the Illinois Institute charter, the Trustees were appointed by the Illinois Con- ference, and vacancies 'accruing between its sessions were filled by the Trustees them- selves.
The finances of the institution becoming more and more involved, the Trustees began to cast about for outside aid to meet current expenses and pay a debt that had already reached the sum of $5,000. This debt, which had grown to over $6,000, was afterward paid through the efforts of President Blanchard. If some people could be found and enlisted, who had principles like their own, the school could yet be saved and made to fulfill the design of its founders.
The Congregationalists, in their free gov- ernment and general adhesion to reform prin- ciples, seemed more like them than any other church.
Overtures were accordingly made to the Congregational State Association, and also to President J. Blanchard, who had recently left the Presidency of Knox College. A meeting of leading Congregationalists was appointed at Wheaton to consider the matter, which meeting, as a whole, decided against the prop- osition to adopt the college; yet many of its leading members promised all the aid in their power, if President Blanchard would take the Presidency of the college.
Stipulating that the charter should be so changed that the Trustees should be a closed board; that the church should make some slight changes, and, while retaining its con- nection with the conference, should become connected with the Congregational Associa- tion, President Blanchard consented to take the Presidency, although at the same time he had similar invitations from five other insti tutions-some, perhaps all, apparently more eligible than the one accepted, for the reason that lie preferred a college whose principles were like his own. The founders, also, were careful before giving up the control, to stipul- late that the institution should continue to teach their principles, which included not. only opposition to chattel slavery, but as well
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opposition to all spiritual despotism that seeks to fetter the souls of men by profane and extrajudicial oaths and obligations.
In Jannary. 1860, President Blanchard en- tered upon the duties of his office. The name of the institution was changed to Wheaton College, and the charter was amended by the Legislature of 1861.
The first class of seven young men, all of them from the regular college course, gradu- ated on the 4th of July, 1860.
The Board of Trustees was enlarged to twenty members, and J. Blanchard, Hon. Owen Lovejoy, Dr. F. Bascom, Deacon Moses Pettengill, De Chester Hard, Dr. Edward Beecher and F. H. Mathers, Esq., became members of the Board of Trustees.
On the breaking-out of the war, a large number of students went into the army, so that the next year no class graduated.
In response to the country's first call for men, several entered the service, among whom G. W. Wood, of the Freshman class, a noble, Christian young man, who, amid many dis- couragements, was working his way to a col- lege diploma and a life of usefulness beyond it, contracted fatal disease while lying en- camped among the swamps of Cairo. He lingered long enough to return to friends at Dover, Ill., but soon struck his tent and went to be with the angels.
G. H. Apthorpe sickened at the same time ard place, subsequently recovered and was afterward shot dead while fighting as Captain of a colored company.
J. H Dudley, too, succumbed to the ma- laria engendered by the stagnant waters about Cairo, dying at his home, in Whiteside County, Ill. Of this same first quota of the college to the war, W. H. H. Mills, a slender, beautiful youth, and a universal favorite, lost his life while bathing in the Ohio River.
Subsequently, G. C. Hand, of Elkhorn,
Wis., then a graduate of the college, a young man of splendid scholarship, of high, noble, Christian bearing, who went into the army -- to serve his country, not for pelf or prefer- ment, choosing the post of a private when office was offered him, volunteering to go un- armed with the surgeons into danger, and, when captured, suffering another to go free in his place when he might have been ex- changed, died by starvation in a rebel prison.
H Skinner, " Little Skinner," as we used to call him, wiry, withy little fellow, thwarted the cunning or malice of some practical joker or copperhead, who had, during the night, placed the hated palmetto flag above the great ball surmounting the cupola of the col lege, hoping to enjoy the rage of the mass of angry youth who, in the morning, should hasten to haul it down. The boy's peering eyes, before all others, espied it, and, almost without an observer, he performed the daring feat of climbing the lightning rod and no eye again saw that emblem of rebellion. To our surprise, for we thought him too small for a soldier, one day Skinner donned the blue and slung his knapsack and rode away to join the country's braves on the field of deadly strife. In the morning of that awful day at Pea Ridge, Skinner was on the sick list. When the order came to march out to battle, forth came he from the hospital, but was ordered back, but the hospital could not contain him while his fellows were fighting for their country. Sallying forth, he mounted a horse and all day long he was in the thickest of the fight, and, at nightfall, insensible, was borne by loving comrades back to camp.
In one of the hard-fought battles of the South, while in the midst of a conflict, a rebel bullet sent him to sleep with the immortal defenders of liberty. Wheaton College gave to the country other sons not here mentioned, because not known to the writer, or, if once
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known, not now recalled. Others, no less brave, bear honorable scars that tell of their fidelity. Among these, Maj. Powell, now of the Smithsonian Institute, having buried an arm in the grave of the great rebellion, after- ward, in the service of science, in the ex- plorations of the cañons of the great rivers of the Pacific slope, performed deeds of dar- ing surpassing those of knight-errant, with his one strong arm boldly steering his frail boat into gloomy cañons, which the boldest native, with two arms, dared not enter, shoot- ing the water falls and coming out safe many miles below. Maj. John Kinley, of the in- vincible Eighth Illinois Cavalry, is growing prematurely gray from an ugly wound receiv- ed in battle, and Sergt. J. F. Ellis, who, while carrying his colors into the deadly breach, fell by a terrible wound, still lives to engage in the ever irrepressible moral con- flict against evil. But the great design of Wheaton College was not to fit men for car- nal warfare. It soon found that in this world where error reigns, truth may not be taught with impunity. From the first, the college had a rule forbidding students to attend se- cret societies while in college. The Master of the Masonic Lodge gave notice that he intended to break down this rule. For some months it did not appear how he was going to make the attack, till at length a strolling lecturer was imported to organize a Good Templars Lodge. He said publicly, let the students join us, and. if the faculty dare say anything we will publish them to the ends of the earth, and they will have to shut up their doors. Three students were known to have joined them, one of whom was made their Secretary, and defiantly posted notice of their meetings in the college halls. The challenge thus boldly given was not declined. When arraigned and asked if they knew of the col- lege rule, they said they did and intended to
disregard it. Their parents were then inter- viewed, and one of them said that he pro- posed that his son should attend the lodge and the college too. The students were then suspended until they should conform to the rule. The falsehood was everywhere pub- lished that the college had expelled students for belonging to a temperance society. A writ of mandamus was sued out to compel the faculty to take these students back. They were beaten in the lower court and appealed, the Master of the Masonic Lodge signing the bail bonds for the costs. The Supreme Court sustained the decision of the lower tribunal, and the first moral conflict ended.
As to birds, there comes a time of nest build- ing; so to men and institutions there comes a time to build; such was the next great un- dertaking of this young college.
A proposition was made to raise the first $10,000 in little Du Page County, and the President said that if others would raise this amount at home, he would go abroad and se- cure other funds to complete the enterprise. Part of the sum was raised, and the writer of this was appointed to canvass the county and complete the subscription.
The west wing was then inclosed and six recitation rooms finished in the connecting wing, when all the moneys raised were ex- pended, and, in pursuance of the policy not to go into debt, building operations ceased.
About two years fter. the President hav ing secured more money, the work of build ing was again resumed. and continued until the present noble building was completed, at a cost of some $70,000, although in doing so a debt, in spite of the President's protest, of $20,000 was contracted.
After this period of external material ac- tivity, there succeeded a calm which was fol- lowed by a moral tornado.
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HISTORY OF DU PAGE COUNTY.
The immediate successors of the Illinois Institute Trustees and faculty felt doubly bound, both by their own convictions and by the injunction of their predecessors to teach their principles, while others who came in later, while professing to hold the same prin- ciples, wished Wheaton to be like other col- leges that made no stir about these reform principles. The secret empire, which, de- spising the weakness of this feeble folk, had before kept comparatively quiet, now began to show signs of war. As before, the local lodge issued, by its Master, its brutum fulmen against a rule, so now there came from secret caverns a hundred miles away an edict that the head of this dangerous institution must be cut off. Strike, but conceal the hand, is the assassin's motto, upon which secrecy al- ways acts. The outburst of this real division of sentiment in the college and church; the sore heads always thrown off by any active movement; the financial embarrassment of the college, all together, seemed to afford a fitting opportunity for action, and for the real actors to escape notice.
One material thing only seems to have es- caped their notice. No power on earth could perform the desired decapitation outside of the Board of Trustees, and the large majority of these held the same principles as their President, and were men whom neither threats could intimidate nor money buy, both of which were tried.
When other measures failed, ecclesiastical action was taken, such as, if now attempted in any civil court in Christendom, would con- demn the actors to an immortality of infamy more enduring than that of the Star Chamber or the Holy Commission, the result of which was to drive from the association of which he had been a father, and the college church from connection with what had always pro- fessed to be a circle of free churchies. When
the mad surges finally are laid, it is found that God still reigns, and Wheaton College, head and all, lives. Not only lives, but still grows and strengthens, sending downward its roots and upward and outward its branches, bearing leaves and flowers and fruits, bidding fair to become a tree of the centuries, to stand, when the errors it was set to with- stand have faded from the minds of an intel- ligent, free, Christian people.
The debt of the college, now increased to nearly $24,000, still remained unpaid. Prof. C. A. Blanchard was planning for much- needed rest in the summer vacation, when, on reading some passages of Scripture, he felt impressed that the debt must be paid, and he must take measures to raise it. Times were still hard, and sober business men said that nothing short of a financial miracle could do it. Contrary to the judgment of the President even, Prof. Blanchard got up a subscription, payable in case the whole sum should be subscribed before the opening of the next fall term. When urged to put the time longer, he said if it was raised God must raise it, and he could do it in that time as well as longer. Before the time ap- pointed, every dollar of he sum was made up as a free-will offering.
The college lives to day out of debt, its faculty agreeing to take what money comes in during the year, and at the close give be balance of their small salaries, and report no debt.
Owing to the infirmities of age, its old President has for two years sought to retire, but, by the united entreaties of Trustees and faculty, has been induced to retain the office till the present.
He now, full of years and honors, gives place to his son, Prof. Charles A. Blanchard, who comes to the head of an institution every way well equipped for duty, having in addition .
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to the ordinary college, a prosperous musical department, under the charge of Prof. S. Wesley Martin; a very successful art depart- ment, taught by Mrs. S. H. Nutting, and a young and vigorous theological seminary, under the charge of President L. N. Stratton, one of the first graduates of the college .-- O. F. LUMRY.
THE COLLEGE CHURCH OF CHRIST.
The first settlers on the site of the town of Wheaton were Hon. Warren L. Wheaton and his brother, Jesse C. Wheaton, for whom the town was named. They worshiped with a small Methodist Episcopal Society, at Gary's Mill, in this county. The first society formed within the town was by Wesleyans, February, 1843, and numbered at first fourteen mem- bers.
This society was ministered to by Rev. Rufus Lamry, Rev. Milton Smith, Alexander McArthur, L. B. Ferris, John Cross, G. Clark, William Kimball, H. Moulton, William Whit- ten and R. F. Markham, whose labors ex- tended to 1855. From that year to 1859, the preachers were Joel Grinnell, G. P. Kim- ball and L. C. Matlack.
January, 1860, J. Blanchard, who had been called to the Presidency of the college, took charge of the church. A new charter was ob- tained for the college, and the name of the church was changed to the First Church of Christ, in Wheaton, February 2, 1860, and about one hundred members were received in the first two years of his pastorate. The Wes- leyans had a rule excluding members of secret orders from the first, seventeen years before the change, and they made it a condition of the change that their testimonies against slavery and secret societies should be faithfully main- tained, which condition has been sacredly observed. It was, however, thought expe- dient to organize a Wesleyan society, and an
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amicable division took place, which resulted in the present Wesleyan Church in Whea- ton, November, 1862. Before and since the withdrawal of the Wesleyans, the members of both churches have all walked in harmony from first to last.
The "First Church of Christ" was so named after the manner of the early Congre- gational Churches of this county, which aimed to be after the strict New Testament model, and were not called " Congregational," but as in Hartford and New Haven, etc., simply churches, designated by number, . street or locality. Like the early Congre- gational Churches, too, it called its commit- tees of discipline "Elders." Its government, too, like theirs, is strictly Scriptural, that is to say, democratic.
Several attempts were made to over-ride or rescind the rule excluding the secret deistical orders, both in the church and in the college, but our Circuit and Supreme Courts sustained the rule, and the church refused to ignore or rescind it.
The church united with the Fox River Union in 1860. It was set off to a new Con- gregational association, the Aurora, in 1867, and was transferred by request to the Elgin association, in 1875. The relations of the First Church with the three local associations to which it has belonged, have been unexcep- tionably harmonious, as also with the general association of Illinois. All these bodies have on their records, the strongest possible testi - monies against the deistic secret orders. In
1867, the State Association adopted a resolu- tion, written by Professor, now President, Bartlett, of Dartmouth College, declaring Freemasonry " hostile to good government and the true religion," and, at the same ses- sion, a report by Dr. Edward Beecher, which says: "By it (Freemasonry) Christ is de- throned and Satan is exalted." And Aurora
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Association refused to license two young men who were Freemasons to preach.
Difficulties having arisen in 1877 of a com- plex nature, stimulated by an officer of a Ma- sonic lodge outside, at the written request of above eighty members, in January, 1878, the church voted to dissolve and become two churches, allowing the members to go with either body as they chose. Some thirty act- ing members withdrew and afterward ex- changed the name of "First Church of Christ " for the " First Congregational Church," and also struck from the manual their testimony against secret lodges.
The original church, to avoid controversy about the name, took the name of the "Col- lege Church of Christ, retains the testimonies unaltered (1882), worships in the same place where it ever has done since its organization; has enjoyed several revivals of religion, peace in its own membership and charity with all churches of Christ. - JONATHAN BLANCHARD.
FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.
The organization known as the First Con- gregational Church, Wheaton. originated in a meeting held at the residence of Joseph Chadwick, Sr., in February, 1843, and was first known as the Wesleyan Methodist Church, its membership numbering fourteen persons. Rev. Rufus Lumry was the first minister. For several years, no records were preserved, but it is known that the follow- ing-named ministers preached for the church between the years 1843 and 1854: Milton Smith, Alex McArthur, L. B. Ferris, John Cross, Geo. Clark, Wm. Kimball, H. Moulton, Wm Whittin and R. F. Markham.
The records have been preserved since 1855, and from these we learn that Rev. Joel Grennell preached a few months during that year; Rev. G. P. Kimball, four months in 1856; Rev. L. C. Matlack, in 1856-59.
In January, 1860, Rev. J. Blanchard was employed as supply, and on February 2 suc- ceeding, the church voted to adopt the name of the First Church of Christ, in Wheaton, Ill., and to send a delegate to the next meet- ing of the Fox River Union, a Congrega- tional association. At the same time, a church covenant, in accordance with Congre- gational usage, was adopted. At the meet- ing of the Fox River Union, April 25, 1860, the church was received into the fellowship of the Congregational Churches. For geo- graphical considerations, it was dismissed to the Aurora Association in 1867, and by that body to the Elgin Association in 1875, where it still holds denominational connection.
On November 29, 1862, twenty-eight mem- bers petitioned for letters of dismission, to form a Wesleyan Methodist Church, which were granted.
In January, 1878, difficulties in the church culminated in the withdrawal and subsequent excision of a large number of members. who organized as an independent body, styled the College Church of Christ.
During the twenty-two years of existence as a Congregational Church, nearly seven hundred persons have been connected with its membership, and its pulpit has been supplied by the following clergymen, viz .: E. N. Lewis, G. F. Milliken, William H. Brewster, J. B. Walker, D. D., Lathrop Taylor and Augustine G. Hibbard. The pastoral relation has been formally instituted in but two in- stances, Rev. G. F. Milliken and the present pastor having been regularly installed.
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