USA > Illinois > Kendall County > History of Kendall county, Illinois, from the earliest discoveries to the present time > Part 12
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189
SCHOOLS AND THEIR TEACHERS.
were from Oswego, New York. Another primitive school house was built by subscription at
YORKVILLE,
and school opened. Day school was commenced in the fall in a log school house, built by subscription, on Daniel Bagwell's farm. It was the forerunner of the present Millington school. Miss Lester, sister of Lemuel Les- ter of Sheridan, was the first teacher. She was followed by Tunis Budd, Mr. Bates and Mr. Montenoy. Titus Howe built the Yorkville mill this season. He had for two years been running a mill in Batavia. On the Bristol side of the river,
A FRAME SCHOOL HOUSE
was built, near Dea. Johnson's, and Emily Webster taught the first school in it. Eleanor Miller, from Aurora, followed. After two years it was moved nearer the river, and Charlotte Bushnell, a sister of the first Lisbon teacher, was the first to occupy the new position. The school was subsequently held in different buildings after the original house was moved toward Oswego. George Bristol, Rhoda Godard, and Miss Beardsley were among the early teachers. Not many records were kept, for it was all the people wanted to do to live. Money was very scarce, provisions sometimes hard to get, teachers' wages six dollars a month, and there was but little attempt on the part of either parents or teacher to provide for more than present necessities. Indeed, no people on earth at that day, and in those circumstan- ces, beside the American people, would have striven so hard to provide a common school education for their
190
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
children at all. From every other country, even from enlightened Britain, emigrants were coming by scores who could not read their own names, while out in the wilderness wilds of the country there was scarcely a boy not able to read the paper containing the notice of their arrival. As the royal monogram on the clothing of the infant prince marks it as belonging to the royal family, so the rough school house in each settlement was the royal mark, telling that it belonged to the people fore- ordained of Almighty God to be the royal nation of the world. The bulk of the nation might be far away toward the eastern ocean, and the settlement consist of but six scattered cabins, whose occupants were strug- gling for daily bread, yet the humble, log-ribbed school house showed the blood relation between them, and was itself the rough-robed prophet of a future time when on these shores the grateful world shall see what it never yet has seen-the national power of Christian education.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
EMIGRATION AT LOW TIDE.
HE YEAR 1838 opened with a de- crease of emigrants over any preceding year. The crash of '37 had not only bankrupted the nation, but had exposed many of the fallacies set afloat by wes- tern speculators, and had dissolved in- to thin air those hopes of sudden wealth which had been beckoning the east toward the setting sun. The State of Illinois, however, weathered the blast as well as might be, by abandoning the system of internal improvements, except work on the canal, and passing pre-emption laws. Real estate, for the time, however, was a drug in the market, and even in Chicago could scarcely be sold at any price.
During the summer, the village of Lisbon was laid out by Lancellot Rood, and in January
MILLINGTON
was laid out by Major Hitt. As in laying out Newark, he brought his lines from the Indian boundary, five miles away. Mr. Jackson was anxious to have it exact, so
192
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
as not to touch the school lands, and though it was a foggy day, Hitt did it so well that when the government surveyor, Eli J. Prescott, the following year surveyed the county, the half section corner intersecting the county line, near Joe Jackson's, was only three feet from Hitt's corner. The new town was called Milford by Jackson and Hitt. The postoffice was not established there for some twenty years, when the name was changed to Mil- lington, out of respect for another Milford somewhere in the State. The grist mill was started this season, and also the "Milford Pottery," a little above the village. Mr. Groover owned the land, and being a potter by trade, manufactured a quantity of unglazed ware, mostly chim- ney and flower pots. The clay was said to be very good, but has never been utilized to any extent.
THE MILFORD M. E. CHURCH
was built the same year-one year after the Big Grove church. Among the contributors to the building fund were :
William Royal, R. Bullard, R. W. Carnes, Jepthah Brainard, H. S. Misner, L. Rood, Philip Verbeck, Fletcher Misner, John C. Hough, John S. Armstrong, Wm. Paddock, Jesse Jackson, James Rood, W. L. F. Jones, Nathan Aldrich, C. Gardiner, Daniel Shattley.
Lancellot Rood was the treasurer of the building fund. Philip Verbeck did the mason work. The subscriptions ranged from ten to seventy dollars. Only the first five names mentioned were members of the church. The first sermon preached in the new house was by Rev. John Sinclair, at the funeral of Mrs. Elizabeth Jackson, wife of Jesse Jackson, who died May 7th, 1839. After
193
MILFORD METHODIST CHURCH.
five years, a movement was made to seat the church, and one hundred and twenty bushels of wheat were sub- scribed. The cash was realized by selling the wheat in Chicago for forty and fifty cents a bushel. The finan- cial committee made the following report :
Wheat sold-28 bushels, at 40 cts.
- $11.20
" -58
50
29.00
Cash collected,
5.00
$45.20
George Paddock made the seats, the carpenter work costing twenty-four dollars. The building is now Wil- liam Gunsel's barn. Following are the circuit preachers on the charge from the first, and for twenty years during which the old house was used :
WILLIAM ROYAL,
S. F. WHITNEY,
S. P. KEYS,
ELIHU SPRINGER,
RUFUS LUMRY,
WESLEY BATCHELOR,
S. F. DENNING,
ELISHA BIBBINS,
LEVI BRAINARD,
S. R. BEGGS,
JOHN HENTER,
LEVI JENKS,
J. W. BURTON, , JOHN AGARD,
W. B. ATKINSON,
A. WALLISCRAPT,
J. LAZENBY,
H. W. REED,
J. W. FOWLER,
M. LEWIS,
DAVID CASSIDY,
ROBERT WRIGHT.
In the spring of 1838
NATHAN ALDRICH, THOMAS FINNIE,
George Sleezer, James Thompson and Henry Waddle came together from Orleans county, New York, and Al- drich and Finnie bought their present farms of W. W. Pickering. Mr. Aldrich has three children surviving : Lyell Aldrich, Mrs. Thomas Finnie, and Mrs. L. H. Carr, of Sandwich. An aunt, Miss Lizzie Aldrich, died
194
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
November 7th, 1838, and was the seventh buried in the Newark and Millington Cemetery. In August
JAMES SOUTHWORTH
and family, from Oneida county, New York, settled at Mission Point. George Southworth had bought the property two years before. There was a cleared spot of an acre in the woods, on which had formerly been sev- eral log buildings, but they were taken down and the logs used for a larger house. Quite a large tract of land belonged to the mission. It was broken up by the Indian war, and the mission farmer shot in the door of his cabin, near J. S. Armstrong's. James Southworth bought of Ole Oleson in 1839, and the following year built the house now occupied by George Cooper, New- ark. He died in 1841. The surviving children are Mrs. L. T. Aldrich-better known as "Galva "-Mrs. C. J. O. Verbeck, Mrs. J. R. Whitney, Missouri, and L. R. P. Southworth, of Chicago. Mrs. Aldrich says : " We took passage in
THE SCHOONER DETROIT,
which sailed from Oswego, New York, July 6th, 1838, and arrived at Chicago August 12th, being five weeks making the trip. At that time the Welland canal was not constructed so as to admit of the easy passage of so large vessels as the Detroit, and frequent delays occurred from running aground, getting stuck in locks, etc.
"From two causes when out in the open lake we were driven about by every gale. The keel had been taken from the schooner so as to admit of her passage through the canal to navigate the upper lakes, which caused her
195
THE SOUTWORTHS' VOYAGE.
to drift at all times, but far worse unless well laden; and as the owners of the vessel could not find sufficient freight at Oswego, we sailed with enough for ballast, stopping at all the principal cities, hoping to get more, but finding little for Chicago ; a few grind-stones were got in at one place, and a few barrels of salt and whisky in another, but a full cargo was not obtained.
"At Mackinaw, we were delayed more than a week by head winds, giving us ample time to visit all those places of interest, the reputation of which has become almost world-wide, such as the Soldiers' Burying Ground, The Case, Old Fort Home, The Arch, Sugar Loaf, Lov- er's Leap, and the Mackinaw Fort, each having a legend of its own, which we learned from the inhabitants and natives.
" But the winds becoming favorable, we left the Island and went to Chicago, sailing up the river and landing on the opposite side from the old log Fort, which was then in a state of tolerable repair.
"As we stepped from the deck of the Detroit, the crew, from Capt. Hawkins down to the cook, each gave us all a parting grasp and a good- bye. And would you believe it ?- the most of us shed tears on leaving the old schooner which had come to be almost like a home."
In addition to the names already given, the following may be mentioned as being here, many of them previous to and all of them as early as 1838: Isaac and Orange Potter, Joseph Sly, Michael Graw, Wm. Sly, Henry Sherman, John and Jacob Heath, F. B. DuBois, Alan- son Parker, Peter Teal, W. P. Lettson, John Whitmore,
196
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
C. B. Rhodes, Smith Herrick, Charles Carr, Elisha B. Wright, Palmer Kinnie, John Coombs, David Shaffer, George D. Hicks, E. T. Lewis, W. H. St. Clair, Ben- jamin Pitzer, Clark Holdridge.
CHARLES F. RICHARDSON
came to Chicago this year, and the following season set- tled in Na-au-say. He was a sailor, and had visited many of the principal seaports throughout the world. His brother, P. P. Richardson, M. D., a graduate of Harvard College, came out in 1846, and the two were together in the nursery business some time. Thomas J. Phillips came on horseback from Lancaster county; Pennsylvania. He started alone, but fell in with others on the road.
In 1838 came Russell Wing, from New York, David Ferguson, Edward Edgerton, S. D. Humiston, E. T. 1 Lewis.
John Chambers was a tailor in Newark, and George and James Armour opened a store where D. A. Munger's house now stands. George A. is a well-known elevator man of Chicago. The
FOURTH OF JULY
was celebrated at Big Grove by a great assemblage from the surrounding settlements. There was a free dinner, gathered by Dr. Kendall, an oration, and a flag made of flannel by Mrs. Barnard. The flag staff was fastened in a hollow stump near the church, and the patriotic colors floated as proudly in the breeze as if the material had been shining silk. It was a famous day, well remembered by every one of the few survivors.
197
TOWNSHIPS LAID OUT.
Among the arrivals in Kendall and Bristol, were Da- vid Cook, M. D., James, Elihu and John J. Griswold, George D. and C. F. Richardson, Joseph and Daniel Wing, W. P. Boyd, John C. Scofield, R. R. Greenfield, Mr. Chittenden, Lewis Morgan.
The old Bristol cemetery was opened in '38, and Mrs. James McClellan, Sr., was the first one buried. Her daughter-in-law was the next. B. F. Alden dug the first grave. It is now superceded by the new Elmwood cemetery.
During the summer the county was surveyed by GOVERNMENT SURVEYORS
under Eli Prescott. A township was first laid off, and it was then divided into sections, the corners marked by little mounds, two feet high, filled with charcoal, and a stake set in, on which the number of the sections were marked. The county was full of ponds and sloughs, and the season was wet and the chain carriers were not accu- rate. So section lines do not always agree, and frac- tional sections are found on the north and west sides of townships. The Land Sale did not occur until the next year.
CHAPTER XXIX.
A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER.
N Little Rock Mr. Coon opened a black- smith shop, near the present site of the church. Dr. J. T. H. Brady, of New York city, having received his diploma the year before, came west for his health, not intend- ing to stay, but having made a claim on Big Rock Creek and liking the country, he remained there eight years, and then moved into Little Rock village, where he now resides. His brother, L. D. Brady, lives in Aurora.
A school was opened in a log building west of Mr. Mul- key's, afterwards Edward Hall's residence. Finally moved to a room below Hatch's blacksmith shop, opposite the church. Miss Lawson and Miss Lay, now Mrs. Faye, were the first teachers. One day in May a company of emigrants from Wayne county, Pennsylvania, passed through Little Rock, stopping only long enough to water and feed. They were
MARCUS STEWARD
and family, since well-known wherever the political lan- guage of the Independents is spoken. Coming on towards
199
THE STEWARD FAMILY ARRIVE.
the river in a southeasterly direction, they put up at Mr. Matlock's over night. Four families, containing twenty- seven persons, were under the little cabin roof, but they all slept well, and in the morning hung the bedding on poles overhead. Since that morning, forty years have passed, and the boys have been wonderfully prospered. George and Lewis were then but twelve years old, but to-day George is worth $50,000 and Lewis a quar- ter of a million. He is president of one rail railroad and a director of another; owns four thousand acres of land, and one-half or one-third interest in divers mer- cantile associations. As the centennial candidate of the Independent party for Governor of Illinois, he came near being elected, running ahead of his ticket.
The sons are Lewis, George H. and John F., at Plano; Aurelius, in Bridgeport, Connecticut ; Wesley, at Stew- ard Station, Lee county, and Amasa, in Iowa. Two daughters, Mrs. H. B. Henning and Mrs. John Smith. One daughter, Mary, is dead. William Ryan, a settler of '36, was an old neighbor, and was the means of their coming to this county. Mr. Steward's claim was first taken up by John and Benjamin Evans.
Brewer Hubbell, William Ferguson, Mr. Chittenden and William Hunter were settlers of '38.
THE HIDDLESON SCHOOL
was opened in 1837. Mr. Hiddleson took the contract to build, daub and cover it for $80. It was in the Rob Roy timber. Joseph Lehman was the first teacher ; then Mr. Pike, Joseph Matlock, Otis Fuller, W. J. John- son, and Capt. Partridge. In a year or two the Hold- ridge school started, and soon drew all the patronage.
200
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
Rev. John Beaver, a Baptist preacher from Long Grove, was the first teacher. After him came Geo. C. Gale, Oscar Bush, a brother-in-law of Horace Greeley, Han- son S. Currier, Mr. Hibbard, and Thomas Hamilton. In 1845 the Ryan school took the scholars. Mr. Gree- ley, a nephew of the great Horace, was the first teacher. Then Fanny Tenney, Melinda Brayton, Oscar Bush, Julia Fuller, Phebe Darnell, Hattie Ryan and sister, Benj. Darnell, Emma Wheeler, Mary Walrath, Mr. Crawford, Richard Macomber, and Libbie Smith. This school ran until the opening of the Plano Academy, in 1855. In 1838
A JURY TRIAL
in a claim case was held before Judge Helm, in the Hid- dleson school house. The Judge in coming there on horseback was mired in one of the sloughs that used to flourish in the shadow of that creek with the Scotch name, and in his wrath he gave the place the curious cognomen of " Busselburg," by which it was known for years. After the trial the jury were locked in the school house ; but while the court was telling stories in front, they adjourned through a side window to Hiddleson's cabin and had supper, and when the constable went to inspect his charge he was astonished from head to foot, a capite ad calcem, to find them flown. But it was not long before he found them, and they found a verdict, and all was well.
On the eastern side of the county, George B. Martin, James McAuley, S. A. Ovitt, and Decoliah Toal were new settlers. The latter opened a tavern in Oswego. The former built the first frame house in Na-au-say, get-
201
SCHOOLS ABOUT PLATTVILLE.
ting the timber out of the grove himself. It is on the Henry A. Clarke estate.
About Plattville the neighbors turned out, hauled logs and rived oak shingles, and built a school house on the town line between Lisbon and Newark. Miss Mary Titsworth was one of the first teachers. Afterwards, Miss Davis, Miss Cole, Mr. Truax, George T. Norton, Lydia Keith, Susan Langdon, Wm. R. Cody, Washing- ton Bushnell, Lucius Whitney, Geo. A. Day, Catherine Chapin, and Electa Lewis. The locality was called "Wis- consin" by the Lisbon people, because it was the State north of them, and is now the " Fourth Ward." Sim- eon Stevens kept a blacksmith shop across the road, where the present school house stands. The latter was built in 1857. The old one was on Reuben Hurd's land, and is now owned by S. K. Avery and occupied as a tenant house.
New settlers in the town were J. F. Moore, James Convis, Eli H. Webster, Galen Barstow, and George T. Norton. Mr. Norton this season taught the first school in the new frame school house in
LISBON VILLAGE,
the latter having just been laid out by Lancellot Rood, as surveyor. Mr. Norton was followed by Mr. Stone, a son-in-law of Mrs. Sears, Mr. Andrus, Charlotte Bushnell, and Mrs. Miles Hills, of Minneapolis. The old house is now Parker's wagon shop.
The Lisbon Congregational church was organized March 22d, with twenty-two members besides the pas- tor, as follows : Rensselaer Carpenter, Eben and Stella Hills, Levi and Sarah Hills, John, Elizar, Calista, Mar- 14
202
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
tha and Emeline Moore, Charity Field, William Rich- ardson, Calvin, Polly and Sarah Bushnell, Janette Wil- cox, Eri L., John E. and Lydia Waterman, Maria Sears, William Harrison, Lewis and J. Allen Sherrill. Rev. Calvin Bushnell was the first pastor. He was fol- lowed by H. S. Colton, Alvah Day (who remained nine years), Israel Matteson, Daniel R. Miller, William Bridgeman, L. B. Lane, Charles Pratt, Uriah Small, Edwin Lewis, Mr. Curtis, and H. L. Howard. The meet- ing house was built in 1853.
The stage line in 1838 changed hands from Dr. Tem- ple to Trowbridge, and soon after it was bought by the ubiquitous Frink and Walker. There was an up stage and a down stage each day, and occasional extras. Thus quite
A CHANGE
had taken place since seven years before, when Chicago was the nearest postoffice, and not even an Indian mak- ing a fortnightly trip on horseback to carry the scatter- ing mail. If the panic of '37 had not come the coun- try would soon have filled up, but from that date actual settlers had been fewer. The groves were nearly all surrounded with a cordon of farms, but the prairies as yet bloomed virtually unbroken. A traveler over the country to-day can have little idea of its appearance forty years ago, especially in summer time. The prai- ries waved with grass and were spangled with flowers of all hues-yellow predominating ; and the views extended for miles, as there were no fences, houses or shade trees to break the vision. The groves were full of under- brush and berries and dense with shade, while the tallest
203
PRAIRIE AND TIMBER IN '39.
trees along the edges became well known way-marks by which the traveler directed his course. The far away tree tops, on the opposite horizon from each settler's cabin, became as well known to him as the stakes of the rail fence around his door-yard. Wild fruits and wild
game were equally plenty. Groups of deer browsed along the water courses, or stood wonderingly on the edges of the groves, gazing at the smoke from the white man's cabin, or at the oxen as they drew the old wooden plow or the V harrow across the field, and perhaps in their poor way (i. e., the deer) trying to comprehend the change that was coming over their land. Prairie chick- ens in abundance made love on the grassy knolls in the spring, and fattened in the fall, and as there were no game laws, they were shot and snared by scores. Quails were not the feeble remnant that divide up in pairs now-a-days, but they went in flocks, and were as abundant as the hazel thickets they hid in. Wild tur- keys gobbled in the thicker woods, but were harder to catch. Badgers burrowed in the sand banks, and prai- rie wolves howled half the night, and skulked cross lots in the morning, trotting slowly along and stopping and turning around occasionally as if they were as innocent as the dew drops under their feet, and had both taste and time to enjoy the top of the morning, before the sun
ยท was up. Snakes were numerous, and along the tim- bered sloughs the passer-by was now and then startled by the whirr of the coiled rattlesnake. But both pleas- ures and annoyances of the pioneer class have gone to return no more. The prairie is cut up with roads as regularly laid as the streets of a city ; the view is brok-
204
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
en by shade trees ; the forlorn badger has gone west, and the bank where he burrowed is planted to corn ; wild fruit must be sought in the orchard, and game can grow only half as fast as it is wanted, and is protected by law ; the groves are honey-combed by clearings, and the tall beacon trees have been made into posts. All is changed-and it is a change for the better.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE LAND SALE.
HE FIRST shipment of wheat from Chicago was made in the year 1839. Sixteen thousand bushels were collected and sent around the lakes by schooner. This was also the year of the organ- ization of our neighbor county of Du- Page, which was at first proposed to be called Michigan county.
There was a mail route from Lisbon to
NEWARK,
conducted by Mr. Giesler, who went a-foot and carried the mail on his back. He lived in the house now occu- pied by Pease Barnard on Asa Manchester's land. Man- chester came in that season from Oswego county, New
205
IMPROVEMENTS IN PLOWS.
York ; also A. P. Southwick, from Clinton county, New York, and Nelson D. Sweetland, M. D., father of our State's Attorney, from Cayuga county, New York ; Ly- man Smith, William Lutyen and Cornelius Courtright came together from Luzerne county Pennsylvania. Smith and Lutyen bought the Barnet building in Newark and kept tavern for some time. Smith died after being here eight years. The Lutyen family are Lyman and Clifford, of Pontiac, and Mrs. George Watson, Mrs. D. A. Munger and Mrs. Wm: Wunder, of Newark. Elmer Mallory set- tled above where S. C. Sleezer now lives. The Edgerton school house was built in Gilbert Edgerton's yard, and the same frame is still used. It is better known as the " Fern Dell" district. Early teachers were Miss Loug- head, Miss Day, Abram Wing, Alonzo Hallock, and Ar- villa Brown.
Christopher Misner was among the new comers at Millington, and was in time to help his brother Fletcher dedicate his new house, which is his residence still. It was the third house in the place-the other two being Jackson's, and the house of Jefferson Tubbs, the sawyer at the mill. Mr. Misner, that season, got a lot of
CAST IRON MOULDBOARDS
from Ohio, which were heralded as a great improvement over the old wooden mouldboard with wrought iron shear. They were shipped by river to Utica, and brought up by team. They took well and did good work, but the next spring they would not scour at all, and were discarded as a failure. Three years afterward Mr. Misner made the first wrought iron scouring plow, from patterns ob- tained at Chicago. They were soon after made by Whit-
206
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
beck, at Chicago; Jones, at Naperville; McCollum, at Aurora; and at Elgin, Lockport and other points. The steel mouldboards at present in use did not come in until 1850.
New comers in the northern part of the county, were Jedidiah Lincoln, Hiram Brown, Paul Colburn, L. B. Bartlett, and A. J. Hunter.
IN OSWEGO.
Col. William Cowdrey, New York; Daniel Cooney, Pennsylvania ; A. B. Smith, Ohio ; Walter Loucks, Montgomery county, New York. The Wormley school house was built of two inch plank set up endways and pinned to the sills. School had previously been held at Mr. Devoe's house, near the great spring (the largest spring in the county). Miss Susan Townsend, now Mrs. Lehman, taught. Then it was held in John Wormley's granary, and was taught by Elizabeth Van Vliet, and Dorcas and Adeline Hopkins. And in the school house, Maria Miller, Augusta Fletcher, Charlotte A. Crandall, Norman Sexton, Lyman G. Bennett, John Tobey, Clia Landerson, Virginia Hoyt, James Hughes, Clara War- ner, George Kellogg, and George Robinson.
The graveyard there is called the " Wormley Ceme- tery." The first one buried in it was John Wormley, in 1836, son of William Wormley.
IN BRISTOL,
Horace Barnes, Owen Kennedy, Mr. Clapp, Thomas Penman, Lyman Childs, Robert Hopkins and Thomas McMurtrie. The latter was from Scotland, and opened the first blacksmith shop in the town, on a lot given for the purpose by Lyman Bristol.
207
MORE SETTLERS AT BRISTOL.
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