USA > Illinois > DuPage County > History of Du Page County, Illinois (Historical, Biographical) > Part 7
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William Laird had 12 votes for Constable. John Murray had 1 vote for Constable.
Sherman King had 1 vote for Constable.
Certified by us.
JOSEPH NAPER, HARRY BOARDMAN, JOIN MURRAY, Judges of Election.
Attest :
ALANSON SWEET, JOIIN MANNING,
Clerks of Election.
Soon after the election, says Judge Blodgett, Henry Pomeroy, Samuel Gooderich, Hiram Standish and Capt. John Barber settled at what was at this time called the Hawley and Scott settlement, which by the next year was so much extended by new-comers as to nearly fill up the gap between it and the Naper settle- ment.
Among this class of settlers who came after the Black Hawk war and became permanent res- idents was Jolin Stephens, who in July, 1832, bought out a claim of P. F. W. Peck, a part of which lies within the present corporate limits of Naperville. He remained on it till his death in 1862. Philinda, his daughter, mar- ried William Laird the next year, 1833, and went to the Fox River to live. Mr. Laird died in 1834, when Mrs. Laird returned to her father's house at Naperville, where she married Hiram Fowler in 1844. She and her husband are now (1882) both living in Naperville, and from them the writer learned the date of the erection of the first hotel in Naperville, as well as being the first in the county of Du Page. It was the Pre-emption House, the frame of which was put up by George W. Laird. brother of William. He sold it to John Stephens, who partly fin- ished and rented it to Mr. Crocker, and subse- quently to Mr. Douglas, Mr. Aldrich, and lastly to Messrs. Munson & Webster. after which he sold it to Gen. Bill.
When the frame of this old landmark was raised, the event was one of no small magni- tude in the estimation of those interested. On all such occasions in that day, the inevitable bottle is passed around at seasonable intervals, and it appears that on this occasion a vein of sentiment inspired at least one mind, and found vent in the following lines, which were spoken by Nathan Allen from the ridge pole of the frame when finished.
"This place onee a wilderness of savage and owls. Where the red man onee roamed and the prairie wolf howled,
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HISTORY OF DU PAGE COUNTY.
This house now erected the place to adorn, To shelter the living and babes yet unborn, We'll name it " Pre-emption" -- a law that's complete, For the use of George Laird who says he will treat."
The author's name is not known, but nobody will accuse him of plagiarism, for the lines them- selves were too naively put together to allow grounds for such a charge, painting as no other language could the spirit of the days of 1834 at the Naper settlement. Michael Hines, who came to the place the next year (1835), arrived on Temple's line of stages, passing Barry's Point, nine miles west of Chicago, where the Widow Barry kept a hotel ; Lawton's, on the Desplaines ; Brush Hill, where Mr. Fuller kept a log hotel, and Richard Sweet's, a hotel one and a half miles east of Naperville. Says Mr. . Hines : " The Pre-emption House was then the only building on the low grounds. On the ele- vated grounds were log houses where the Na- pers, Mr. Strubler, Dr. White, Dr. Potter and Alexander Howard, who kept the post office, lived. There was one store also at the time. Mr. lines is now Justice of the Peace in Na- perville. But the country all round was filling up with settlers, and it may with truth be said that its agricultural growth was more rapid than its increase in trading interests, for the reason that the first wants of the settler were simplified down to his necessities, and until the farmers of any new country get revenues from their farms, their villages will improve slowly.
The only publie surveys that had yet been made in the country were of the lands south- east of the old Indian boundary line, which only took in about fifty sections in the south- east corner of the present county, but settlers could not wait for surveys. They were on the ground, and when they saw a piece of land that suited them, they took possession of it, or, at least, as much of it as they felt their ability to pay for when it came to be surveyed and brought into market by the Government. To
define the limits of their claims, they plowed a furrow around them on prairies, and blazed the trees to define claim lines in the groves. The first claims thus made were for lands comprising both prairie and timber in requisite proportions; water also being an important consideration, lands on the Du Page River, or those on which springs were found, were the first sought for. All lands of this description, for many miles around the Naper settlement, were under claim as early as 1835, but plenty of open prairie had not been taken possession of previous to 1839.
The second hotel built in the Naper settle- ment was the New York House. It was not at first intended for a hotel, but for a wagon and blacksmith shop, for which purpose it was used for a year or more, when it was metamorphosed into a house of entertainment, by removing the forges which once stood where now the billiard table stands in this establishment, which is still like the Pre-emption House, one of the links that connect the early day to the present.
R. N. Murray was its first proprietor. While the house inside had been purged of every ves- tige of blacksmith's cinders-honorable in their place, but not appropriate in a hotel, still the old swings for shoeing oxen outside remained for some years-after their mission had ended- there standing as a huge memento of the early methods of transportation by these slow, but faithful animals, with their eloven hoofs plated with iron.
During all this time, Naperville was the cen- ter of attraction. Here was a saw mill, stores, shops and two taverns, and it was on the great highway that led from Chicago to Ottawa, and thence to Vandalia, the capital of the State. This road was traveled by a constant stream of prairie schooners, as they were called. They were large Pennsylvania wagons covered with canvas, drawn by oxen. Slowly they moved along, with their ponderous burdens following the beaten track over the great ocean of waving grass, that was omnipresent, with nothing to
Daniel Me Inune
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HISTORY OF DU PAGE COUNTY.
relieve its monotonous grandeur (if the ex- pression is admissible) but here and there a grove. When night overtook them, their drivers fed the oxen from the prairie and berthed him- self in the wagon after having eaten his cold boiled ham and corned bread, seasoned with a swallow from his flask (if he had not joined the teetotalers) to tone up his spirits with his di- gestion.
Naperville was a far-famed stopping-place for these travelers, and some of its early resi- dents have informed the writer that more than fifty of these "prairie schooners " anchored there during the season of travel every night. Whisky was 20 cents per gallon, and they had merry times. Far along the verge of the grove their shouts rent the air, and their camp-fires gleamed through the darkness till a late hour. The teams from the West were loaded with grain for the Chicago market, and those from the East with goods to supply the necessities of farmers. such as salt, leather, plows and other indispensables.
Besides this travel through the place, there was a large travel from every direction to it, to bring corn and wheat to a grist-mill, which Bailey JIobson and Harry Boardman had fin- ished in running order in 1835. This was the first and only one of the kind that went by water in a large scope of country around, and here the farmers came with their grists, and also took the occasion to do a little shopping at the stores.
It was a great event in the place when this mill went into operation ; every one wished to help the enterprise along, and let it not be for- gotten that in this benevolent work Miss Lucy Standish made the bolt cloth, and ingeniously put it on the reel. She is cousin to the wife of Mr. F. Mather, a resident of Wheaton, and a true descendant of Old Cotton Mather, the great foe to Salem Witches. Whether Miss Standish is related in any way to the celebrated Miles, the writer cannot say, but it is certain that she is not his direct descendant, as he died a bache-
lor, after an unsuccessful courtship, resulting from the blunder of sending an agent to do his courting, who won the lady on his own account, and left poor Miles a lonesome monument of the old adage, that " faint heart never won fair lady." Albeit the memory of Miles Stand- ish is embalmed in history, for his pugnacions feelings toward the Indians, who never commit- ted an offense against him. His humble name- sake, Miss Lucy, whose ingenuity in making the first bolt cloth that ever separated bran from flour in this county, still lives among us, worthy to be represented in these pages. In the good old times when she was in the hey- day of her vigor, almost everybody partook of the "rough and ready " spirit. If anything difficult or dangerous was to be done, there was little shirking. Nobody was afraid of soiling their kid gloves. It's doubtful if there was such a thing in the county.
Hiram Fowler, who still lives as a resident of Naperville, now far advanced in years, de- lights to rehearse the tales of early life there, and amongst other reminiscenses, has a wolf story, which, though familiar to his fellow-citi- zens, will bear printing for the benefit of those who have not heard him tell it.
In 1836, his home was a mile and a half above Naperville, on the bank of the Du Page. from which, late one afternoon, he rode to the town on horseback to buy some groceries. On his return, his dog encountered a wolf some distance ahead of him, and he well knew, from the fierce snapping and yelping, that a battle was going on between the two. Hastening to the spot, he dismounted, but he had no weapon, not even a stick with which he could take part in the evenly matched fight. But, unarmed as he was, he ventured to give the wolf a kick in the head. or rather make the attempt to, when the defender caught the toe of his boot, and cut a hole through the upper with a single snap, his tooth passing between two of Mr. Fowler's toes.
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HISTORY OF DU PAGE COUNTY.
Nothing daunted by the failure of this first charge upon the enemy, he next grappled with him, catching him by the hind foot and swing- ing him around so violently that he could not turn the biting end to defend himself. Mr. Fowler saw his advantage, hung to him with the grip of a giant, swinging him furiously with one hand, while with the other he seized the bridle of his horse and leaped upon his back, still clinging to the wolf. Ile now galloped to the home of Mr. Bird, half a mile distant, who came to his assistance and dispatched the wolf.
Besides the permanent settler who plants himself on the soil of a new country and grows up with the country, is another class of men, of whom it may with truth be said, lose the end in the means to acquire that end. They are the incarnation of the true pioneer, and their love for settling on the broad face of nature, untarnished by the devices of clans or even the restraints of conventionalism, amounts to a passion, or, as some would say, "a hobby." These men are almost always generous and self-sacrificing, abhor technicalities and scorn thieves.
They take a short cut toward what they consider a principle of justice, though it may be across fields of jurisdiction. Mr. Lewis Ellsworth, a well-known citizen of Naperville, tells the writer an anecdote as to one of these men, named Stout, who had made a claim on the west side of the East Branch of the Du Page, Lisle Township, Section 11. "He had a large field of corn near the road where the travel went from the back country to Chicago, and it was a frequent occurrence that passers with loaded wagons woukl take corn from his field to bate their teams. When informed of this, he replied that it was all right, as he felt so strongly imbued with the principle of hospi- tality that he felt no desire to put a stop to what the mildest name other people would have given to it would be a trespass. But Mr. Stout came from a backwoods place in Indiana, where
the generosity of the neighborhood would for- bid one to charge pay for a horse feed, and he could not bring himself to such a practice. Soon after this, there came an avalanche of settlers and the machinery of law and society was put fairly in motion. Then he left for a new field on which to bask in the sunshine of immunity from restraints.
Those who have lived in frontier places can best understand the eccentricities of these men. The writer once knew one of them to move six or eight miles and build a new cabin at the spot because his cow had chosen her range there, which whim would be like the tail wag- ging the dog instead of the dog the tail. Without drawing any comparison between these inen and Oscar Wilde, who stands at the other end of the pole, it is justly dne to them to say that, with all their idiosyneracies, they possess points out of which the romancer and the poet weaves the brightest colors into his fabric. Cooper's Leather Stocking was one of them, and Longfellow's Lover of Evan- geline was another. One other class of the early day deserves mention, and that is the preacher.
The reverend pioneer was no æsthetic. He rode an ambling pony from settlement to set- tlement, and quartered on the hospitality of the people as he went along, which was always a steadfast dependence, for no one would turn anybody away, especially a preacher. He was always very much at home, and, if his coat often wanted a few stitches to make it present- able to an audience, he did not hesitate to ask the mistress of the household whose circle he honored with his presence to do the necessary needle work. His sermons, if not elegant, were effective, and laid the foundation for more learned and perhaps more effeminate preachers to reap where he sowed the seed.
Rev. S. R. Beggs was one of these early preachers, and has written a book relating his early experiences, from which the following
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HISTORY OF DU PAGE COUNTY.
.
quotations are taken as good authority to show the methods and mission of the early preacher. On page 91. he says : " I thanked him, and attended morning devotions. The thanks and prayers of the Methodist minister in those days always settled the reckoning with their hosts." On page 108, continues Father Beggs, in 1834: "I was re-appointed to Des- plaines Mission (this included the Du Page country), and I returned with renewed zeal, which in this case was the more necessary, as the rage for speculation was just commencing among both settlers and emigrants. It was an earnest struggle, and it sometimes seemed impossible to hold the attention of the sinner long enough to impress him with the great claim which the Gospel had on him. Those who would not come out to church I followed to their houses, conversing with them on the highways and by the wayside. It was a doubt- ful struggle ; but by the help of the Lord and His efficient instruments-in the persons of Brothers Walker, E. Scarriott and F. Owens- I saw many souls converted and believers
strengthened. * * * My worldly goods increased, so that, if one could use the paradox, I was cursed with blessings. Three years be- fore, I owned a horse and $60, now my farm of 240 acres was nearly paid for, and I had four horses, seven cows and forty logs."
On page 229, in speaking of Rev. Mr. See, Father Beggs continues : "I knew him well, and as a good preacher, and if he 'got into the brush,' as the pioneers used to say, when one was at a loss how to go on with his sermon, it was no more than others did who made preten- sions to greater advantages when trying to preach without a manuscript, and at last did not get the brush cleared away after all, as did Father See. Indeed, I have often thought of the story of one of the ' regular succession,' who, while preaching, suddenly discovered that ' third- ly ' had been blown out of the window, by means of which he lost the thread of his ideas, and came to a full stop. And " (continues Father Beggs. in defending Mr. See from an attack made on him for ' slaughtering the king's En- glish'), " thank God, he slaughtered sin, also."
CHAPTER IV.
PUBLIC LAND SURVEYS-THE LAND CLAIM SYSTEM-NECESSITY FOR THE HIGHER LAW-THE BIG WOODS CLAIM PROTECTING SOCIETY-THE LAND PIRATE COMPANY-LAND SPECULATORS -INDIAN BURYING GROUNDS-THE FOX RIVER COUNTRY-METHOD OF GRINDING CORN-INDIAN VILLAGES-INDIAN AGRICULTURE-INDIAN MODES OF TRAVEL-THE COUNTRY NORTH, EAST AND SOUTH OF THE DU PAGE SETTLEMENTS-THE DU PAGE COUNTY SOCIETY FOR MU- TUAL PROTECTION-THE HOGNATORIAL COUNCIL.
THE public lands of the United States are ordinarily surveyed into rectangular tracts, bounded by lines conforming to the cardinal points. These tracts are designated as town- ships, sections, half-sections, quarter-sections, half-quarter-sections, quarter-quarter-seetions, and lots. They have, as nearly as may be, the following dimensions : A township is six miles
square; a section is one mile square ; a half- section is one mile long and one-half mile wide ; a quarter-section is one-half mile square ; a half-quarter-seetion is one-half mile north and south, and one-fourth mile east and west; a quarter - quarter - section is one - fourth mile square ; a lot is one of the subdivisions of such part of a fractional section as is not susceptible
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HISTORY OF DU PAGE COUNTY.
of division into quarter-quarter-sections, and contains, as nearly as may be, the quantity of a quarter-quarter-section.
This plan of survey is called the rectangular system. It has been in operation since the latter part of the last century. Since its in- auguration, it has undergone modifications con- tributing much to its completeness. The later surveys are, therefore, much more systematic and regular than the early ones.
In applying this system to any portion of the public lands, a base line, on a parallel of' lati- tude, and a principal meridian intersecting it, are established as the necessities and con- · venience of the survey may require ; and they are laid down and marked with great care. Other lines are then run corresponding to these, and so that the last ones are, as nearly as may be, six miles apart each way.
The rectangular tracts thus formed are the townships, and subdivisions of these form the sections and fractions of sections.
A line of townships extending north and south is called a range. The ranges are desig- nated by their number east or west of the principal meridian. The townships in each range are named by their number north or south of the base line.
This will be understood by observing upon the map of Illinois that a principal meridian is laid down from the mouth of the Ohio River northward through the State, and that in the northeast corner of Washington County it in- tersects a base line on the parallel of thirty- eight and a half degrees. This principal meridian and base line, it will be seen, are each numbered both ways from the point of inter- section. This is the third of the established permanent meridians of the land survey. Springfield, for instance, is thus found to be in Township 16 north, in Range 5 west, of the Third Principal Meridian.
The Fourth Principal Meridian begins at the mouth of the Illinois River and intersects a
base line at Beardstown. All of the State west of the Illinois River, and west of the Third Principal Meridian northward from where it crosses the Illinois River, is numbered from this fourth meridian. The Second Principal Meridian extends from the Ohio River, in Crawford County, Ind., through the State. It intersects the base line in Orange County. The portion of Illinois east of Range 11 east of the Third Principal Meridian, north to the south line of Township 31, is numbered from this Second Principal Meridian, all the rest is num- bered from the Third Meridian, and Du Page County is included in this territory. The public surveys had been extended through the entire southern and central portions of the State of Illinois long before Du Page County or the northern part of the State had been settled, and on no part of the public domain of the wild and unsurveyed territory of the United States had so many complex conditions crossed the path of the settler as here.
That this country had so long remained comparatively unknown to the world outside, was due to the fact that the Indian title to it had not been extinguished till the social antagon- isms of the white and red races were brought face to face with each other, and demanded action to prevent violence. The Pottawatomies had been no idle observers of the manner by which their red brethren east of them had been driven from their lands. They had seen these tribes take up the hatchet, and though led by such renowned chiefs as Pontiac, Little Tur- tle and Tecumseh, had been vauquished and almost annihilated in the nnequal combat that followed their efforts to defend their soil from the first inroads of the settlers. Hoping to avert such a calamity, they attempted to do it by submission. and in accordance with this policy never molested the settlers who came among them, nor could Black Hawk's emissa- ries with all their bravado induce them to change their peaceful policy. For this reason
-
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HISTORY OF DU PAGE COUNTY.
the Government could have no quarrel with them, and there was no necessity to extinguish their title to their lands till social influences under the conditions of peace as already stated made it essential to the best interests of both the red and white races to do so. This is why public surveys in Northern Illinois had been retarded so long. The consequence was that the settlers, in their haste to secure the best lands, were obliged to take possession of them in a state of nature, and establish the limits and boundaries of their farms themselves, which limits of course would have to be changed to suit the lines made by the survey- ors when they came to be made. To adjust these limits whose section lines left portions of two or more men's claims in one section, in- volved nice distinctions in the natural princi- ple of justice, with no precedent or rule as a guide. This was only one of many other com- plications to be solved on principles of equity and fair dealing growing out of land claims. The primary object of the settlers was to secure homes for themselves, while for the rights of the land speculator who came here to take possession of the land to speculate on and en- rich himself on its enhanced value growing out of their labor, they cared nothing. He did not come within the pale of this protection; on the contrary, he was regarded with jealousy, and had a thorny path to travel when he came in collision with their interests.
But the foremost object of the settlers was to guard against " claim jumping." This was an attempt on the part of some interloper to take possession of some parcel of land within the limits of a claim already made. The lim- its were marked by a furrow in the prairie, and in the groves by marking the trees in a similar manner to the way in which public surveyors " blaze " their lines through the woods in tim- bered countries.
To adjust all the disputes liable to grow out of all these circumstantial points, it was
thought expedient to organize a society and appoint a committee of referees with plenary power to settle all issues that compromise had failed to harmonize between parties interested. To this end, on the 6th of February, 1836, a meeting of claim-holders was convened at the house of Mr. A. Culver, who lived on the eastern side of the Big Woods, which lies partly in the southeastern corner of Du Page County and also beyond to the west in Kane County. At this meeting, Dr. Levi Ward, Frederick Stolp, A. E. Carpenter, William J. Strong and Charles Sidders were appointed a committee for the purpose required. These gentlemen constituted a court of justice from whose decision there was in substance no ap- peal. Not that they or their constituency held themselves in a position of defiance to law. They only made a law unto themselves to pre- pare for an emergency for which the laws of the land had not made provision. They only protected themselves in their natural rights to land before it was surveyed, as the Government protected pre-emptors after surveys had been made.
It is true that certain contingencies were lia- ble to come up with them not possible to pre- emptors of public lands, and for these contin- gencies they did not hesitate to provide, as the sequel will show ; and here the historian would be at default if he did not record the fact that in no case has the decision of this self-consti- tuted court been accused of injustice. The so- ciety formed at the house of Mr. Culver was called "The Big Woods Claim Protecting So- ciety," of which John Warne was Secretary. It was the first of the kind in the county and consisted of ninety-seven members, including officers, all of whom, so far as tradition and reports go. were stalwart, justice-loving men, who would neither commit an offense against justice nor submit to one, quite a number of whom are still living.
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