History of Kane County, Ill. Volume I, Part 3

Author: Joslyn, R. Waite (Rodolphus Waite), b. 1866
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: Chicago : The Pioneer Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1292

USA > Illinois > Kane County > History of Kane County, Ill. Volume I > Part 3

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Theodore Roosevelt, in his "Winning of the West." says of this people : "Thus the backwoodsmen lived on the clearings they had hewn out of the everlasting forest : a grim stern people, strong and simple. powerful for good and evil. swayed by gusts of strong passion. the love of freedom rooted in their very heart's core. Their lives were harsh and narrow; they gained their bread by their blood and sweat. in the unending struggle with the wild ruggedness of nature. They suffered terrible injuries at the hands of the redmen, and on their foes they waged a terrible warfare in return. They were relentless. revengeful. suspicious, knowing neither ruth nor pity; they were also upright, resolute and fearless, loyal to their friends, and devoted to their country. In spite of many failings, they were of all men the best fitted to conquer the wilderness and hold it against all comers."

But while many. perhaps most of the early settlers of Kane county, were of this Scotch-Irish-English stock. molded and made new in the struggle of the wilderness, a considerable element of the older so-called Puritan stock. descendants of the original New England people. came here in an early day. They were of that class who followed the backwoodsmen as they opened the forest and prairie. And that they came into Kane county with the descendants of the Scotch Presbyterians, most of whom, like themselves, had doubtless never seen an Indian or lived on the frontier battle line. was because the land of northern Illinois was cleared of Indians by the soldiers of the United States government, and by the purchase of their lands. It is well known history that during the time England owned and controlled the col- onies, her policy was to discourage settlements in the West, as she enjoyed

REMAINS OF A LOG CABIN STILL STANDING WEST OF ST. CHARLES.

KANE COUNTY HISTORY

and desired to continue the profitable trade her merchants there enjoyed among the French and Indians. And when independence had been secured, the new nation was too busy getting her feet well planted and her name respected among the nations of the world, to give much attention to the opening of the wilderness. Hence the contest in the early days was carried on by the frontier people with little aid from the soldiery, who were more often defeated by the Indians than successful, knowing little of the methods of frontier warfare.

But early in the seventeenth century the general government adopted a policy of buying the Indian lands and transferring the redmen to the West. This was done as regards the lands of the Sacs, Fox and Pottawattomies in the Fox river and Rock river valleys. There was some dissatisfaction on the part of the Indians with the terms of purchase. This fact is given as the exciting cause of the Black Hawk war, which was quickly put down by government troops. In 1790, in Washington's administration, the Indians had attacked settlements in Ohio, and it required several years' fighting to suppress the redmen. They made a treaty ceding northern Ohio to the United States.

In ISHI the Indians again conspired together under a chief named Tecumseh and attacked the settlements in the Northwest. William Henry Harrison, afterward president, then governor of Indiana territory, met and defeated them at Tippecanoe, in western Indiana. The Indians later joined with England in the war of 1812. The Fort Dearborn massacre, commemo- rated by a bronze statue at the foot of Eighteenth street, Chicago, occurred at this time. The punishment given the redmen in these wars increased their fear, if not respect, and they not unwillingly, if sometimes reluctantly, sold their lands to the general government and accepted lands west of the Mississippi.

This combination of facts made it possible to settle northern Illinois with- out massacre or bloodshed. When the pioneers came they found the Indians friendly, or at least pacified. They soon disappeared entirely, leaving the newcomers in undisturbed possession, contesting only among themselves, and with nature.

As above suggested, this peaceful entry of a new land by individuals was a new fact in the world,-a fact since repeated many times in the settlement of the far West.

NATIONAL CONDITIONS IN 1835.

The coming of the pioneers, who swept like a wave over the middle western states after the French and Indian war, reached northern Illinois about 1830, during the first administration of Andrew Jackson as president. The general population of the United States then numbered about thirteen millions, having more than doubled since the War of Independence; mostly by natural growth, the later foreign immigration not having yet begun. The center of population was near the west line of Maryland. It is now near Indianapolis, Indiana. Less than ten per cent of the people lived in cities of over 8,000. Now over forty-five per cent are in such cities. New York city then comprised 200,000 inhabitants; Philadelphia, 167,000; Baltimore,

KANE COUNTY HISTORY

80,000; Boston, 60,000; Cincinnati, the largest western settlement, was small town. Chicago was a distant settlement known as Fort Dearborn, and contianed 400 or 500 people. There were but three millionaires in the entire country. The nation was yet largely composed of agriculturists and back- woodsmen hunters.

Great industrial inventions were, however, fast coming into use. Steam- boats were a new fact, and ran on the great lakes from Buffalo to Chicago, and on the western rivers. The Erie canal was a much used waterway from New York to Buffalo and the great lakes, and much facilitated the transporta- tion of settlers to Illinois. Many came by lake to Chicago, and then west by ox-team. The application of steam to railroading began in 1828, but railroads were not built in Illinois until after settlement had well advanced.

President Jackson was at this time seeking to have the charter of the United States Bank refused on application for renewal. This he accomplished ; which fact, with the general conditions of trade, led to a panic and general depression, which, doubtless, had no small part in urging pioneers to under- take the settlement of free lands in the wilderness of the West.

Although it is now but seventy-five years ( two generations) since the first white men looked upon the beautiful Fox river valley and found it good, it is uncertain who first trod its soil and who first made permanent settlement within its boundaries. Many came about the same time.

Among the first to cross the Fox river within the limits of the present county were soldiers sent here to put down the uprising of the Indians during the Black Hawk war, in 1832. The tradition, which apparently states the fact, has for years held place that a troop of horsemen and soldiers from old Fort Dearborn, or from the eastern states. made their way northwest along what is the old Chicago road, through what is now Bloomingdale, DuPage county. and crossed Fox river near what is now known as Five islands, just north of St. Charles. The exact point of crossing is not clearly known. They passed on further northwest. Two graves of soldiers of that company were long visible on the bank of the river. The path they then took was long used as the state road from Chicago to the northwest, and is still the main highway as far as Bloomingdale, with branches to the various towns along the river.

None of the first pioneers in the Fox river valley are now living, although a number who came as early as 1838 are still residents of the county. and though well advanced in years, are able to clearly picture those earlier days. Where now there are busy factories and places of trade on every hand, and all the luxuries, as well as vices of civilization, are realized, then the virgin forest and stream filled the landscape with beauty and promise. Of those who came from 1840 to 1850 many live to give information of conditions and progress then had, and of the arrivals after 1850 a large number still reside in the county, where for sixty years, they have been content to dwell with their children and grandchildren.

Such information as we have gathered together in this book we have obtained from books which have been written by personal interviews with the older settlers yet living, and from the newspapers and records of the county.

KANE COUNTY IHISTORY

THE TRUE CAUSE OF SETTLEMENT.

It is generally stated in the public histories of Wisconsin and Illinois that the defeat of Black Hawk opened to settlement northern Illinois and the southern portion of what is now Wisconsin. Unqualified, this statement is misleading; indirectly, it is true that the war proved a powerful agent in the development of this region. The Indians in themselves were no obstacle to legitimate settlement, the frontiers of which were far removd from Black Hawk's village, and need not have crowded it for several years to come. Of course, it was necessary in time to clear the path for civilization. What this war accomplished in the way of territorial development was to call national attention in a marked manner to the attractions and resources of this part of the great Northwest. The troops acted as explorers of this tract, concerning which nothing has been known definitely among the white men. It is also stated that the Sauk Indians had not inhabited the part of Illinois north of the mouth of the Kishwaukee, and when the war was fought and they were followed into Wisconsin, it is also stated that they were unfamiliar with that country and employed Winnebago guides. Immediately after the war the newspapers of the eastern and older settled middle states were filled with descriptions more or less full of the scenes and possibilities and prospective industries in the Rock river valley, of the groves and prairies on every hand and of the dense forests of Wisconsin. From the press were issued books and pamphlets and accounts of the newly discovered paradise. For the most part crude publications, abounding in error, and today unknown, save to the historian, but it is true that they did advertise the country and set flowing thither the tide of emigration. There necessarily followed in due time the opening to sale of the public lands hitherto reserved and the prop- erties of what territory remained among the Indian tribes of the district. The Winnebagoes, hitherto unfriendly, were humbled and the spirit of mis- chief making ceased. This, it will be noticed, was the last Indian uprising in the northern states, east of the Mississippi river. This incidental subduing of the Winnebagoes and the broad, liberal advertisement given to the theater of disturbance were, therefore, the two practical and immediate results of the Black Hawk war, the consequences of which were at once to give enormous impetus to the development of the state of Illinois and the territory of Wisconsin.

CHAPTER III.

HOW THE PIONEERS CAME.

We here of today can form no just conception, no right idea of the conditions met by the hardy men who came to the, then, far West, in the '30S. We may enter a plush-seated car at Chicago, run over a track of steel for twenty-four hours, and leave the same car at New York, scarcely fatigued by the journey. We may start at Chicago at 10 p. m., and be in Buffalo, New

KAANE COUNTY HISTORY

York, the following day for lunch. By road travel in a lumber wagon, we would have little difficulty in getting to New York in ten days or two weeks. But seventy years ago conditions were so different that we, with great difficulty, realize them. There was no regularly traveled road west of Detroit or Cincinnati. From those points west the country was unbroken and unknown, inhabited only by Indians and a few scattered settlements. The only avenues of travel were Indian trails and buffalo runs. Traveling meant going through an open wood and prairie, over hills and through valleys with no guide, save the stars and the sun. Where a buffalo run could be followed it materially aided progress. Of these buffalo trails a former writer, whose name is not given, but who appears to speak with authority, aptly says :

"The roads of the country were originally buffalo trails, as they once would go in great herds in their regular migrations over the country. The habits and instincts of these animals were very interesting. They seemed to have certain routes, running from the northwest toward the eastern and southern Atlantic sea shores, and over these they would pass at regular intervals. These travels came in time to be interfered with by the Indians, who hunted them for game, and from them got their food and richest raiment. They were truly royal game. There were several well noted routes of those animals that could be traced, at one time, from the Rocky mountains to the Carolinas. On these great buffalo highways were found the Indian villages and wigwams of some of the most powerful tribes. The immense herds of buffalo in their travels would come to a large stream, and here they would regularly go into camp, to use an expression applied only to human action. They would stop, and for days tramp and eat down all vegetation for a wide space, dig out mud holes and wallow in the thick mud, and each would be dreading to cross, yet all seemed to understand well enough that they would cross, and not turn back on their trip. They had no leader bold enough to make the plunge. If they had had one of that kind they would no more than have paused when they came to the stream. All seemed to equally dread to lead the way across, and all were eager to follow any one that would lead. When there was nothing more to eat on their grounds they would commence to circle, and every time those on the inner side would push those next the water a little and little closer to the water's edge. After a time, as they would again come around, they would push the outside ones into the deep water, when they would boldly turn their heads for the opposite shore and all would follow. A singular fact is, that where the buffalo would have longest bivouacked, there, in time, would be found the largest Indian village, and these, in turn, are the places where we have built our great cities. In other words, the buffalo, and then the Indians, were the natural engineers to point out to civilization the natural sites for their great cities. This is true of every city in America at least. And it is, in nearly every instance, true that the early roads of the country are now the great trunk lines of the railroads, and these were but following the buffalo and Indian trails. The first pioneers were generally following the Indian trails. By doing this they reached the natural fording places of the streams, as well as the easiest passes in the mountains.

KANE COUNTY HISTORY

"A noted route passed from east to west through Geneva township, which crossed the Fox river at Geneva. This afterward became the great highway between Chicago and Galena, and finally the railroad route. This no doubt was a buffalo and Indian highway before America was discovered, or even the adventurous Norseman was born. The pioneers simply followed this old trail. It became a white man's great traveled route as soon as there were white men here to travel on it."

There appears to have been three means of reaching the West in the early days : by wagon, on horseback, on foot; or by way of the lakes from Buffalo to Chicago. From Chicago to the Fox river the travel was by team or on foot. Joseph McCarty appears to have come from Elmira, New York, alone, and on foot, as did Christopher Payne, the first settler at Batavia. William Lance and his son, John Lance, came from Pennsylvania with a wagon drawn by eight yoke of oxen, in which rode a daughter, Mary Lance, who married John Lowders, and a younger son, who drove the team. The two walked all the way, their rifles on their shoulders. Provisions stored in the wagon, supplemented by such game as the rifles brought down, made up the meager meals enjoyed by the caravan as they camped by their lone fire in the wilderness of wood or prairie. Twenty miles a day was good traveling, and they came many hundreds of miles.

The same writer quoted above, wrote years ago as follows, his impres- sion, no doubt, having been received from personal experience or first-hand statements of the pioneers :

"In 1834 the stream of immigrants began its mighty course toward this upper Mississippi valley, and the story of their coming, the rapidity of the growth of population and improvement, the wealth and splendors of civiliza- tion that have marked the half century from then till now, is much like a tale of enchantment. It is a wonderful picture to the mind. First the lone hunter and trapper, bearing about him but little more of civilization, except his gun, than were to be seen among the half-naked savages; then came the lone pioneer, on foot or on horseback, ready to get far into the hunting grounds. and far away from his own people, and content to live and be more of an Indian than a white man; then the other class of first-comers, bringing in an ox wagon their wives and children, seeking free homes and rich lands, with no other end in view than tilling the soil and accumulating land, and raising enough to eat and wear. In the splendors of the present the trials and hardships of the pioneer fathers are apt to be covered up and forgotten. That they first met obstacles that would have appalled any but the most resolute and daring, goes without the saying. That they met and conquered many of these obstructions our tender children even somewhat understand. Yet the innumerable evils and afflictions that lay in their paths-evils that lay in ambush, and that came upon them like the unseen waves of an epidemic-cannot now all be told, because these were silent heroes, strong and fearless men, who took their position in the front of their dependent ones, wearing their lives upon the sleeves of their buckskin wa'muses, they faced, without a tremor, death in any and every form."

KANE COUNTY HISTORY

It would be of interest to modern residents of Kane county to have at first hand the detailed story of such a trip by ox-team or afoot through wood and prairie, where for many a hundred miles no human habitation would greet the eye; a settler's cabin at long intervals; an Indian camp here and there, more feared than the wilderness. Everywhere the tangled wood and tall tough prairie grass impeding progress. They who could afford to send their goods by steamboat were indeed fortunate. They who came by ox- team their tortuous way, deserved all that awaited them of enjoyment or property.

An incident of the difficulties of travel by wagon is given of Dr. L. S. Tyler and Mark Ranstead, who, in 1836, settled in Elgin township. Being out of flour, wheat and corn, in December, they went with a team of horses to a neighboring cabin. Going, they crossed what is now Tyler creek, over the ice. On their return the ice had fallen in, leaving it slanting on both sides, the water running above in the middle. They had a load of twenty bushels of corn, and fearing to cross, unharnessed the horses, and in attempt- ing to get them over the creek one fell on the ice. The horse would have drowned had not one of the men stood in the water hip-deep and held his head above the surface, while the other went about a mile to the cabin to get a team of oxen and a chain to pull the horse out.

Another incident of apparent fact is that of Samuel C. Rowell, founder of the Rowell family at Hampshire. When but eighteen years of age he started west alone on horseback from Vermont, and stopped in Kentucky three years. He then came northwest by the same means, crossing Indiana and entering Illinois near the middle of its eastern line. In crossing the prairies further south he found the houses often forty miles apart. Following old trails and new wagon tracks, pushing through prairie grass up to his horse's neck, swimming swollen rivers, and undisturbed save by a startled herd of . deer or the yelp of a prowling wolf, he progressed from cabin to cabin. After his residence in Kentucky he had acquired the dress there common, long hair and whiskers, and suit of buckskin. He was one evening turned from a settler's cabin because of his resemblance to a gang of horse thieves who had shortly before visited the vicinity.

The coming of Amos Miner and Levi Leach to Kaneville was by lake and wagon route. With wife and child hie journeyed from Wayne county, New York, to Detroit by boat, through the Erie canal and the lakes. The balance of the way was by wagon. Frequently the wagon would be swamped in the wet earth and sand. For miles they would find no dry land. At times the team would have to be hitched to the rear of the wagon and hauled out of a rut to solid ground. They had often to camp in swamps and sloughs swarm- ing with mosquitoes. Upon reaching LaPorte, Indiana, the women of the party were taken sick, and a long encampment necessitated.

Cyrus B. Ingham, who early came to Kane county from Jefferson county, New York, wrote in 1869 as follows: "At Detroit we hired a wagon to Chicago, and were ten days making the trip. The route between Michigan City and Chicago we were forced to travel on the lake shore, with one wheel in the water and the other in the dry sand, with the wagon tipped sidewise

KANE COUNTY'S FIRST COURTHOUSE.

KANE COUNTY'S SECOND COURTHOUSE.

KANE COUNTY HISTORY

at about a quarter pitch. All who could, were obliged to walk. We reached Chicago May 18, 1835. The next day we crossed the flats at Barrays Point, nine miles out (west). At that time almost the entire distance was under water often over our boot tops. We crossed Fox river at the old Indian village about a mile above where Aurora now stands. There was no wagon road then in that direction and we followed the Indian trail. Old Wau- bonsie, the Pottawattomie chief, was then still there, ruling his tribe in all his Indian glory."

A vivid picture of the arrival of a caravan from the east was written by Mr. Jesse C. Kellogg, of Sycamore, in the Sycamore Sentinel in 1855. He wrote : "Soon after the Indians had done their sugar-making, when the groves began to grow leafy and the prairies grassy, as the sun sank low in the west, and the prairie wolves began to howl, and the sandhill crane to scream and poke along the ponds and 'sloughs' for their evening meal of crawfish, a close observer might have espied, afar off on an Indian trail, suspicious looking canvas, supposed to be the sail of a 'settler's' wagon, evi- dently nearing some grove, and in a strait to get 'somewhar' before night- fall. Presently, emerging from the dusky prairie, the settler's wagon, pro- pelled by some four or five yoke of oxen, canopied with sundry bolts of sheet- ing; within containing the family bedding, clothing and provisions; without, implements of cooking and husbandry, chickens in coop and pigs in pen, backed by a drove of cows, calves, colts and other young stock on foot, would loom up plainly to view, 'fetching in' near some point, bay or plum thicket, where in after days 'Bonny chiels and clever hizzies' were to lift the latch and force the way to a happy cabin home. It was no uncommon thing in those days for the mistress of the wagon to 'pail the keows' in the morning and place the milk where, by the incessant motion of the wagon during the day, it would churn itself. In this way the family were provided with a constant supply of good, fresh butter ; and old chanticleer and his dames in the coop behind, never caught napping when hens should be awake, would keep up the laying process, so that with other supplies from the wagon a settler's wife could usually 'scare up' a pretty good meal on short notice. In this hitherto neglected spot, where 'full many a flower' was 'born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air,' the weary, yet blithe and happy groups might have been seen to alight, strike a fire, prepare, and after craving God's blessing, eat their frugal meal ; when, guarded by a watchful dog and a still more watchful Providence, they would retire for needed repose into the inmost recesses of the wagon home. And at an early peep of dawn one might have seen the anxious settler reconnoitering, with hurried steps, grove and prairie, when after being 'detached here'-'countermanded there'- bothered almost to death for fear that among so many good chances he should fail to secure the best, at least he would bring himself to the 'sticking point,' seize the ax and 'blaze' the line in the 'timber' and anon, hitch the team to the prairie plough and 'mark out the furrow on the prairie.' "

A history of Elgin, published in 1875 by G. P. Lord and a Mr. Bradford, then real-estate dealers here, contains an account of the coming of Hezekiah Gifford and his brother, James T. Gifford. The account was published in the

KANE COUNTY HISTORY

lifetime of Hezekiah Gifford. and was apparently dictated by him, and may be taken as an authentic narrative :

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History of Kane County, Ill. Volume I, Part 3

Author: Joslyn, R. Waite (Rodolphus Waite), b. 1866 Publication date: 1908 Publisher: Chicago : The Pioneer Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1292

Author: Joslyn, R. Waite (Rodolphus Waite), b. 1866
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: Chicago : The Pioneer Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1292