USA > Illinois > DuPage County > History of Du Page County, Illinois (Historical, Biographical) > Part 35
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CHAPTER XIV.
WAYNE TOWNSHIP - PIONEER LIFE OF ITS SETTLERS-CORNER ON WHISKY AND ITS RESULT- INDIAN BURIAL - INDIAN IMPORTUNITY - WOLVES ON THE RAMPAGE - GOING TO MILL-FATHIER KIMBALL - PIONEER SCHOOL-GIMLETVILLE-ITS HOPES DASIIED TO THE GROUND - HILLOCKS, SPAS AND RIVULETS -WAYNE STATION - RELICS OF THE STONE AGE.
THREE years before the battle of Tippe- T canoe was fought by Gen. Harrison, Rob- ert Y. Benjamin was born. His father, Daniel Benjamin was a brave old pioneer who had set- tled on the north side of the Little Scioto Riv- er, in Ohio, opposite where Columbus now is,
and here was the place, then amidst Indian alarms and the rough-and-tumble conditions of border life, where he raised his family, one of whom, Robert Y., is now a citizen of Wayne- the first who came to the place and settled-in mind and body still sound, and seventy-four.
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Daniel Benjamin, the father, with his four sons -Andrew, John Joseph and Robert Y .- and about ten other families, all came to the place together with their own teams, from Ohio, ar- riving at what is now Wayne on the 12th of May, 1834. All these families, except the Benjamins and Joseph Vale, whose family was one of the party, settled on the Fox River. But Robert Y. was attracted to the place where he still lives by the famous spring that gushes out of the ground from beneath the shadow of the beautiful grove at the place, and there he set down his stakes ; moreover, he says his wife was tired of traveling and liked the location. This is a point in favor of female counsel, and poorer ones have been made in favor of female suffrage, for Mr. Benjamin and his wife made a success of their attempt.
The rest of the family settled not far distant, on claims from nature's amplitude of prairie and grove as tree as it was inviting. Besides the Benjamin's Mr. Vale also settled, a little to the west of them. Among the necessities which he brought to the new country in his wagon was a barrel of whisky (a questionable one) of which Mr. Benjamin says he never gave away a drop. He was the only one of the company who laid in a stock of this emollient, and may be regarded as the first monopolist that ever practiced that modern art in Wayne. Ilere he he had a corner on whisky. and shortly after the settlement of the place, a band of 300 Pottawat- omies came to the grove and encamped. He was now bull in the whisky market, having it all his own way. At whatever price he sold it, Mr. Banjamin says, a riot among the Indians was soon manifest, and one of their number was killed.
Next eame the interment of the fallen sav- age. He was dressed up in his best blanket and leggings, and placed in a sitting position on the ground, his body erect, his head upright and ornate with feathers. Thus tableaued his ; friends cut some saplings from the grove and , way to Chicago, along what was then known
built a pen around him, cob house fashion, and left him provided with a bow and arrow, and an extra pair of leggings for future use in the happy hunting grounds. His frail tomb was on Mr. Benjamin's land and was frequently visited by him out of curiosity. Ile did not disturb the corpse
" In the grave where an Indian had laid him,"
but the prairie wolves had no respect for In- dian rites, and soon pressed between the poles that illy protected his clay, and made many a late supper from it under cover of night. Sub- sequently the Vale boys set the skull up for a target to shoot at. The wolves carried away the rest of the bones to their lair for Christmas toys for their young whelps to play with.
" Alas, poor Yorick !"
Mr. Giles Billings and John Laughlin came to the settlement the following autumn, and soon after him John Rinehardt, Mr. Simpson and Patrick Scott. The next year, 1835, an officer appeared at Mr. Benjamin's house ; he was from an obscure town in the east, named Chicago, the same slab city through which Mr. Benjamin had passed the year before, and had then failed to attract his favorable notiee, but now the place was coming up in the scale. A grand jury was to be impaneled there, and Mr. Benjamin was wanted to sit as one of its mem- bers. The officer served the summons, mount- ed his horse and vanished in the tall prairie grass, and Mr. Benjamin set about getting ready to obey the call. The next morning he started on foot, keeping his course due east by the compass. The soil was spongy. and noon found him toiling through the trackless flats that border the east margin of Salt Creek. He was hungry, but relief soon came. It was roast potatoes and a cup of tea, on which he dined at the hospitable home of Maj. Giles, who lived two miles west of the Desplaines River, with his latch string always hanging on the outside of the door. This was the only house on his
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as the St. Charles trail. On Mr. Benjamin's return he took the precaution to fill his pockets with ginger snaps or some other kinds of bak- ery delectables, which Chicago had then begun to make for Indian traffic or hungry footmen, who had long stretches of prairie marsh to cross.
Of other settlers whose pioneer experiences represented the times, were the families of Solo- mon Dunham and Edmund Bartlett,
Both were from the State of New York, and both arrived at Chicago in company with each other, on the 24th of March, 1835, in their own teams all the way. Here they rented a small house on Randolph street, not far from the store of Mr. Dale, the pioneer store-keeper of Chicago. The house was a log cabin, with but one room, over which was a loft, reached by a ladder through an aperture in its loosely laid floor. Into this cabin, the two families were crowded as a temporary abode, while the two heads of them-Mr. Dunham and Mr. Bartlett -started with the team westward to hunt up a location on which to settle.
Mrs. Dunham had two children, and Mrs. Bartlett six, making, with themselves, ten in the family after their husbands had started on their mission. The two men threaded their winding way around the sloughs till they reached the fertile prairies on the fringe of the timber that skirts the eastern banks of Fox River, just west of the present site of Wayne Station, and here they each bought claims to lands. Mr. Bartlett still lives on the same now ; but Mr. Dunham died in 1865. Having set their stakes here, the two pioneers returned to their families in Chicago ; paid up the rent of their wretched tenement ($1.25 for the ten days they had ocenpied it), and all started together for their new homes. On arriving there, the first thing to be done was to build a house, and, of course, a log house, for they had neither means nor material to build a frame ; and Mrs. Bartlett says the one she and her family lived in was
very small. The bed was in one corner, and the fire-place in one end, with the chimney out- side, and yet she sometimes played the hostess to travelers overnight, who managed to find a spot on the floor not occupied by trundle beds, on which they could stretch out full length, with perhaps a horse saddle for a pillow, or some other makeshift.
The first year they raised nothing, and Mr. Bartlett was obliged to go to Chicago with liis team for provisions, a trip which required three days' time. While thus left alone, except with the children, one night an Indian came to her door, entered without knocking, according to their custom, and threw his baggage down in one corner of the room, " Me stay all night ! Me good Indian ! Me no hurt you !" said the red intruder, and all her entreaties could not dissuade him from his purpose. Mrs. Bart- lett had to accept the situation, and laid down on her bed, while her red guest snoozed himself to sleep, not ten feet away from her.
He was a good Indian who wanted a night's rest, and why should he sleep outdoors when there was a house to sleep in, reasoned the hon- est child of nature ; and let us be charitable enough toward him to believe that had he un- derstood the improprieties of his demands as civilians do, he would not have insisted on lodging in the house when a woman was alone in it. On another occasion, when Mrs. Bartlett was also alone, a young red rascal came rush- ing into her cabin, crying out, " Bad Indian coming ! Kill !" and immediately fled into the adjacent grove. Sure enough there were five Indians rapidly approaching her house, on the well-frequented Indian trail that passed it, as hard as they could gallop on their ponies. On arriving, they could easily see that she was ter- rified at their presence, and the first thing they did was to allay her fears by pulling off some of their trinkets and giving them to her chil- dren, and otherwise exhibiting tokens of kind- ness. This done, they inquired for the first
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Indian who had visited her, and she told them the course he had taken, and that he had called them bad Indians. At this they laughed heart- ily, and informed her that they were following him to get a pony he had stolen. They then left in hot pursuit of the fugitive. Sometimes large numbers of Indians would encamp near the house and remain a day or two, but never did any harm, except to sometimes take what salt they wanted to eat wherever they could find it; but to do them justice, Mrs. Bartlett says that if they ever took any they soon brought its equivalent in value in fish caught from the Fox River or venison shot from the groves, and many a quarter of this delicious meat did the Indians present her family. The Indians were very fond of Mrs. Bartlett's bread, and one day, seeing two loaves of it on her table, took one of them, and gave her a butcher knife in return, saying at the same time, “ Me got two knives, you got two loaves. Me give yon one knife and take one loaf." She found the knife very useful, and kept it many years. Mrs. Bartlett said nothing against the Indians, but felt glad when they were removed. The country was alive with wolves for the first few years, and they continually came howling around the house like thieving dogs after bones, and it was no unusual thing for them to come to her door at night and quarrel together over bacon rinds or other food thrown out.
!
The early settlers here took their first corn to mill at Bailey Hobson's grist-mill, near Naper- ville, usually carrying it in a bag slung across the back of a horse.
It was a lonesome way, and the wolves often followed the horse and rider all the way home, if late in the evening ; and sometimes, if they came too close, the rider took out one of the stirrups of the saddle to defend himself with in case of an attack, which weapon would be quite effective for close quarters, the iron stir- rup with the straps attached to it working like
a slung-shot. On one occasion, one of the early settlers, late in the afternoon, while returning from some distant place with his horses and wagon, was followed by a pack of these hungry prowlers, who actually tried to leap into the hind end of his wagon, and might have done it had he not repelled their charge with his whip. There are yet a few of these animals sneaking about in the groves adjacent, and six of them were killed in 1881.
In the spring succeeding the first winter spent at this new settlement, there was a great want of potatoes. and one of the settlers was sent with a team to the Wabash River in Indi- ana, to get seed to plant, which was the nearest place where they could be bought. During their first year at the place, they had been de- prived of this healthful esculent, and when they finally got a supply, no table delicacy could be more delicious. Daniel and Mark Dunham, both now well-known residents of the vicinity, are sons of Solomon Dunham, who came with Mr. Bartlett, but, as before stated, Mr. Solomon Dunham is not living, and MIr. Bartlett, though living, feels the effect of eighty- one years, and has forgotten much of his long and eventful life, but his wife is in the full vigor of her mental and physical powers, though the mother of ten children, and a monument of the health-giving air of Du Page County, and to her is the writer indebted for the foregoing pioneer reminiscences. Ira Albro, a present resident of Wayne, came to where he now lives in the autumn succeeding the arrival of Mr. Dunham and Mr. Bartlett, and shared the laud- able ambitions with the toils of pioneer life with the peers of lis age.
Samuel Brand, Mr. Styles, Mr. Whaples (father of Mrs. F. Hull, of Wheaton), Daniel Roundy (uncle of Capt. Roundy, of Winfield), Samuel Talmadge, the Whittacres, the Ker- shaws, Mr. Hemingway, W. Hammond, Ezra Gilbert, J. V. King, Charles and Wesley Gray, Reuben Walpole, Joseph Davis, W. Farnsworth,
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HISTORY OF DU PAGE COUNTY.
Joseph McMillen (who established the first post office at the place at McMillen's Grove, Daniel Lyman, John Smith (father of Mrs. Colvin, of Wheaton), Luther F. Sanderson, Horace Reed, Aaron Wood, James McCabe, Mr. Hilling . (who subsequently died of cholera at St. Charles), Orin lliggins, Thomas Morgan, Lu- ther Pierce, Joel Wiant and James Davis all came to the settlement between the years 1835 and 1837.
In the latter part of 1837, William Kimball, a native of Vermont, came to the place. He was a Methodist class leader and preacher " to the manner born," and here was a field for his clerical learning. He built a log cabin for a family domicile ; but, in default of any other place for divine worship, it became also a rally - ing place from whence to dispense the Gospel, and thither settlers gathered, even from five or six miles distant on foot, on horseback, and with ox teams, to hear Father Kimball preach. He, with the assistance of his neighbors, built a log schoolhouse the next year, which served also for a church, thereby giving the family of Elder Kimball, consisting of a wife and eleven children, more sea-room at home on Sundays. John Kershaw, brother of A. Kershaw, of Wayne, was the first male teacher in this pio- neer temple of science, and Miss Julia Talmadge was the first female teacher. She now lives in Aurora, the wife of Mr. Weaver.
It was an event of no small magnitude when this school was established, and its reputation might be envied by some of our modern col- leges. It was a subscription school, and was patronized for a radius of four or five miles, some distant ones taking board near by to avail themselves of its teachings. This settlement then belonged to the Du Page Circuit, as the Methodists had named it. After the original Fox River Circuit had been divided into two. Elder Wilcox was the first circuit preacher sent here by the Presiding Elder, and Rev. -. Gad- ding the second. But before either of these
came, Father Kimball had led the way as al- ready stated.
The first hopes of a village in this region found a rallying point at Wayne Centre. Will- iam K. Guild, now a citizen of Wheaton, settled there in 1839. The incipient town was on the old army trail, and the land around was at- tractive. A store was opened at the place by Abner Guild and James A. Nind, in 1844, and, tbe inevitable blacksmith shop, by John Sherman, about the same time, who was succeeded in the muscular art by E. Eckhart.
Wayne Centre had by this time outgrown her niekname of Gimletville, and the prospect was reasonable that she might become a moderate sized village, like her nearest neighbor to the south-Naperville. Under this impression, she must have a church. Accordingly, one was organized, first as a branch of the St. Charles Church, which was Congregational, that being the religion that most of the settlers had brought with them to the place. It became an inde- pendent organization soon afterward, and held services in the schoolbouse till 1832, at which time they had completed a church of their own, its membership numbering thirty. Rev. Ebenezer Raymond was their first settled pastor, who was succeeded by Rev. L. E. Sykes. Rev. E. W. Kellogg was the next pastor, who was succeeded by his son, L. H. Kellogg.
The influence of the railroad which pierces the central portions of the county was now fully demonstrated. It had been running three years, and while towns on its line were growing, those remote from it were decaying. Under these discouragements, the church in Wayne was sold and removed to a society in Bartlett, just over the line in Cook County, in 1879, and Wayne Centre preserves nothing of its early hopes but its name.
The township of Wayne is in the extreme northwestern part of the county, and is known
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WAYNE TOWNSHIP.
by Congressional description as Township 40, Range 9. Its surface is quite diversified, being rather more uneven than that of any other township in the county. It has a large num- ber of living springs, several small groves of timber and many transplanted trees and or- chards, giving its whole area the appearance of a timbered country.
The West Fork of the Du Page River has its main source in the northeastern corner of the township, and waters its eastern portions, but a small head tributary of this stream flows from Bloomingdale. The little inlets and springs from which this stream is made up are nu- merous, and present a pleasing landscape as they creep along beneath a tangle of vegetation toward the larger channel, which is more con- stant here, near its fountain-head, than it is farther down in extreme low water. A saw- mill was erected on it, on Section 14, by Jonas Blank in 1849, who died with typhoid fever soon afterward.
The farms are large, and those who own them may generally be called wealthy. Fine blooded cattle, horses and sheep are a specialty with them, but milk and the dairy business is a growing interest.
The Chicago & St. Paul Railroad touches its northeastern corner, and the Chicago & North- Western Railroad passes through its southwest- ern portions, and from the elevations of their tracks, reported by the engineers of the two roads, the average elevation of the surface of the township above Lake Michigan is estimated by the writer to be about one hundred and seventy feet.
By the school report of 1882, it has eight school districts and 351 persons between the ages of six and twenty-one years, of whom 218 are enrolled in school lists. Its contiguity to Elgin makes villages unnecessary in the town- ship, and there are none except a small one named Wayne Station, on the Chicago & North- western Railway.
It sprang into existence when the railroad passed through in 1849, at which place Solo- mon Dunham was the first Postmaster, and Egbert Adams opened the first store, which was in the same building now occupied by H. Campbell.
The following lists show the business men in the place, in 1870 and 1882 :
BUSINESS MEN OF WAYNE IN 1870.
Dry goods and groceries, Campbell & Brother, Adam M. Glos.
Carriage factory, John Arndt.
Boots and shoes, Hiram Adams.
Blacksmiths, Vincent Smith, Hasbrook Lo- zier.
Tin and hardware, James Campbell.
Pressed hay, Case & Arndt.
Postmaster and station agent, A. D. Trull.
BUSINESS MEN OF WAYNE IN 1882.
Dry goods and groceries, Adam M. Glos, H. Campbell.
Wagons and carriages, John Arndt.
Boot and shoe maker, Peter Carlson.
Blacksmiths, William Eggleston and Has- brook Lozier.
Tin shop, James Campbell.
Station agent, H. W. Hubbard.
Postmaster, A. D. Trull.
American Express Agent, Adam M. Glos.
Justice of the Peace, Adam M. Glos.
Cheese factory, three miles east of station, owned by C. W. Gould, of Elgin.
It is due to science to state that Adam M. Glos has been collecting Indian relics for the past thirty years in Du Page and Kane Coun- ties, a great many from Wayne, Winfield and Naperville Townships, which consists of stone arrows, all sizes and patterns ; also stone axes in great variety, and many other relics of the stone age. Mr. Glos has explored a great many mounds along the Fox River Valley, none being found in Du Page County.
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HISTORY OF DU PAGE COUNTY.
There is a Congregational Church at Wayne Station, for which thanks arc due to William Sayer.
THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.
This was organized February 18, 1871. Five members withdrew their names from the Wayne Centre Church, and with the aid of thirteen on profession of faith it was organized, with a membership of eighteen in number, as follows : Simeon Barber, Hulda L. Barber, Albert W. Moffatt, Alice Moffatt, Elizabeth Smith. By profession : Julia Trull, Cordelia Pratt, Ro- land Hall, Esther Hall, Rhoda Wolcott, Catha- rine Dolph, Nancy Dolph, Harriett Lozier, Mary Smith, John Arndt, Ellen Arndt, Jauette Pix- ley and Robert Carswell.
ONTARIOVILLE.
This is a station on the Chicago and St. Paul Railroad, about one-half of which is in Wayne, situated on Section 1.
It was platted by William Leesburg April 7, 1874. It affords excellent facilities for shipping the produce of Wayne to Chicago, especially milk, which is an inercasing interest in the vicinity. The following is a list of the business men of the place :
E. Bartlett, station agent and lumber dealer.
M. Debker, Postmaster and general storc.
Fred Freeman, blacksmith.
Fred Olendorf, general store.
C. Ackerman, cheese factory.
C. Humbrocht, hotel.
CHAPTER XV.
BLOOMINGDALE TOWNSHIP-INDIAN BURYING-GROUNDS-THE MEACHAMS-PIONEER BURIALS- EARLY ROAD DISTRICTS-SCENE IN A SUNDAY SERVICE-TRAGICAL TERMINATION OF A LAW SUIT-SCHOOL DISTRICTS -PETRIFACTIONS-BLOOMINGDALE VILLAGE- CIIURCHES-BUSINESS MEN OF BLOOMINGDALE-ROSELLE-ITS BUSINESS MEN-MEACHAM-STRANGE PHENOMENON ON KELLEY'S FARMI.
"THIS is the central northern township of Du Page County, situated in Township 40, Range 1. Its average elevation above Lake Michigan is above that of any other town in the county, as is shown by its being the sources of both the forks of the Du Page River, and also the source of a western tribu- tary of Salt Creek.
Its general elevation above Lake Michigan is estimated to be about 180 feet, except in its lower portions. A beautiful grove occu- pies the southern parts of Sections 10, 11 and 12 and the northern portions of Sections 13, 14 and a corner of 15. This grove at- tracted the attention of the aboriginal inhab- itants of the country as a refuge to fly to during the nipping frosts of winter, and also
the heat of summer, and here they made offerings to appease the supposed wrath of the Great Spirit, and here their rights of sepulture were devoutly performed in their own barbaric way, evidences of which are still extant and afford speculations for the archæologist. Their name for the grove was Penneack, which in their tongue was the name of an esculent root which they used for food and which grew there. What the root was the writer does not know. It might have been ginseng. The Indians in their straits have often lived on worse fare than this. Whatever the root was, the Indians made an- nual autumn harvests of it for two or three years after white settlements had begun at the place which was on the 11th day of
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BLOOMINGDALE TOWNSHIP.
March, 1833, when Silas, Henry and Lyman Meacham, three brothers from Rutland County, Vt., built a log cabin there. They had traversed the broad face of the country that intervened between this spot and their home with their own teams.
The ground was covered with snow, and everything on the broad face of nature around, except the grove, looked desolate and forbidding, but here was a glad retreat and here their stakes were set.
The Meachams were men of broad-gange charity - could fellowship their red neighbors and lived on good terms with them for the few years that they remained at the place previous to their removal, and the trust and confidence extended to them was never dis- honored. Their nearest neighbors were the settlements of Jude Gary, Lyman Butterfield and H. T. Wilson, near the present corners of Milton, Winfield and Lisle Townships- a distance of about ten miles. The follow- ing antumn after their first settlement, Mrs. Lyman Meacham died. There was no ma- terial at hand wherewith to make her coffin, except the wagon box. This was taken apart, and the boards of which it was made recon- structed into a coffin to receive the remains of her who had come to the place in the ve- hicle, so soon to serve her for this last purpose. In the autumn of the same year, Maj. Skinner came to the new settlement, and a young mechanic came with him, whose name has not been preserved, but he died shortly after his arrival. and was buried in a coffin made of boards riven from a forest tree and dressed with a plane.
The next years, 1834 and 1835, Daniel D. Noble, Capt. E. Kinney, Isaac Kinney, Noah Stevens, David Bangs, Elias Maynard and Harry Woodworth came to the place. Cupid came soon afterward as a regular immigrant to settle in the country, and drove the first
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stake of his claim through the heart of young- Noble, healing the wound by making a simi- lar impression on Miss Sybil Stephens, and the priest did the rest by the usual ceremo- nial. No wedding cards were printed.
As settlements increased, public highways were necessary. The old army trail road. which passed along in its westerly course south of the grove, was older than history, for, when Scott's army traveled over it, the track had hitherto been known as an Indian trail, leading from Chicago to the great Win- nebago village, where Beloit, Wis., now stands. But this road only went in one di - rection, and roads leading to neighboring settlements were soon projected by the an- thorities of Cook County, in which this set- tlement then was. Road districts were laid out, and this settlement and the settlements at Warrenville were in the same district, un- der the charge of an official who was called a Roadmaster.
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