USA > Illinois > Kendall County > History of Kendall county, Illinois, from the earliest discoveries to the present time > Part 22
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379
THE TEXAS CATTLE DISEASE.
Speaking of live stock brings to memory the Texas cattle disease that gave us a visit once. Major W. N. Davis, in 1868, received one hundred and eighty Texas steers, which he drove out from Chicago to his farm. A strange disease followed them. It seemed to be spread along the route over which they had traveled, and while they were not affected at all, other cattle were seized with it and died in considerable numbers. Laureston Walker lost nine cows and thirty head of young cattle, and brought suit against Major Davis to recover, but lost his case both here and at Princeton, where it was taken. Whatever the disease, it has not visited us since. Another cattle panic, of a different nature, but yet almost as serious, occurred in May, 1869. Nathan Brown and Stephen Ashley had collected throughout the county a drove of fourteen hundred cattle, which they were to herd during the summer in Kankakee county, and stop- ping over night at Manteno, the entire drove took fright and stampeded. When once started, no human power could stop them. They were confined in a lane, and in their struggles to get away, leaped on each other's backs, or fell and were trodden to death. Horns were knocked off, bones crushed, drovers trampled, and nine animals were killed. The noise of the stampede sounded like thunder, and could be heard for miles. One of the drovers, impelled by despair, fled the county. Scores of horsemen went down from Kendall county searching for their stock, and most of them were eventually recov- ered.
Passing from stampedes to reform-a Kendall County Prohibition party was formed at Oswego, June 12th. A
380
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
convention was held at Yorkville in October, E. Moul- ton, president. A prohibition ticket was put in the field and received one hundred and twenty votes.
In July, a "Kendall County Woman's Suffrage Asso- ciation " was formed, with Mrs. M. A. Steward as Pres- ident. A convention was held at Plano, and another at Yorkville in August.
Among the fatalities of the year were two fatal falls and a fatal burning. In March, Mrs. McOwan, of Bris- tol Station, while giving her little daughter a music les- son, accidentally knocked the lamp off the melodeon, and was so badly burned that she soon died. In October, Mr. Dodd, of Bristol, while going with others to do a job of threshing, and standing up in the wagon, fell out, and breaking his skull, died in a few hours. In Novem- ber, Mrs. Asa Manchester, of Newark, while visiting at Mrs. Edgerton's, fell down the cellar stairway, and died the next morning.
Among the new buildings of the year were the Heap school house, in Seward, and the residences of Lott Sco- field, in Big Grove, and of George Parker, in Oswego.
The Heap school district was the last one formed in the town of Seward. The first teachers were : Nellie and Emma Stolp, and Orrin Bly.
The railroad excitement sustained itself through
THE YEAR 1870.
The first train of cars entered Yorkville, October 27th, and was received with rejoicing. Golden visions of div- idends on stock floated before the minds of the fortunate holders of the same. But alas ! for human hopes, espec- ially railroad hopes. At the close of the year the entire
381
EXCITEMENT ON RAILROADS.
road mysteriously sold out to the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and the Kendall county stock was worth only what it would bring for old rags.
In the meantime, Little Rock and Bristol were a little rent over the C. B. & Q. road, and Lisbon was a good deal rent over the Pekin and Southwestern. Indeed, it amounted in the latter town to a railroad war. The ques- tion was whether the town should vote an appropriation. At a special election, held May 3d, they said " No," one hundred and forty-five to sixty-two. At an adjourned election, held July 1st, they uttered a fainter " No," one hundred and thirteen to one hundred and three. At a third election, held August 3d, the negative did not vote, and the affirmative carried the day, one hundred and seven to three.
Among the year's fatalities were, a man accidentally shot and killed while hunting in the Aux Sable timber, in Seward; Andrew Sevinson accidentally shot at Pavil- lion by thoughtlessly crossing his leg over the stock of his cocked gun; and Geo. H. Jacobs and wife, bitten by a mad dog, at Holderman's Grove, but reported cured by the application of a mad stone kept by J. P. Evans, Lincoln, Illinois. During the summer, H. M. Bannis- ter, Assistant State Geologist, spent a few days in the county examining us geologically, but his visit was too hurried and his examination too superficial to do us jus- tice. Our Kendall county geology, properly explored and written up, would make a valuable and very inter- esting addition to our history.
382
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
In 1870, our indefatigable German, Frederic Post, finished the famous stone structure known as
POST'S DAM,
after four years of constant work. It crosses Fox river four miles below Yorkville. From fifteen to twenty men had been employed on it each season. It is in the form of a segment of a circle, with the convex side up stream, twelve feet thick and eight feet high, laid in cement, and cost $15,000. It is certainly one of the finest river dams in the country. Brownell Wing, of Big Grove, bought a half interest in it for $6,000, and proceeded to put up a stone flouring mill, with four run of stone and four turbine water wheels-the whole costing some $30,- 000, exclusive of the water power. He was obliged to borrow money to finish it, only to find, when the machin- ery was in and all things in readiness, that the enter- prise would not succeed. The railroad, instead of mak- ing a depot there, as he expected, left him half a mile to one side. Other causes, too, combined to disappoint his plans. The splendid mills were never started, and the building still stands in its massive loneliness, its broken windows staring out on the river and looking over the high banks on either side, a mute witness to the truth that "the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglee." It passed into the hands of the Valley Power Company, and is now owned by it. The dam, too, which was intended to be almost as enduring as the earth, has been undermined by the power of the water, the foundation boulders washed out, and a breach of several rods in length has been made, which there is at present no finan- cial inducement to repair. Post's dam is no more.
383
THE MILLINGTON CANAL.
Soon after the mill was completed, a brace of thieves entered it one night and with sledge hammers broke up nearly all the costly machinery for old iron. One of them was afterward apprehended. The time may yet come when the property may be utilized, but at present it is the most striking and romantic ruin we have in Kendall county. It is much frequented as a place of summer resort. Nothing but the pillars and stairways is within, except the heavy burr stones, one or two of which have been thrown down through the floors.
Closely connected with the Post's dam and Wing's mill enterprise is the
MILLINGTON CANAL,
projected by the Valley Water Power Company. The charter was obtained by Hon. J. W. Eddy in 1866. After a delay of six years, ground was finally broken on the north side of the river, above the woolen mill at Millington, by an eight horse ditcher from Ottawa, Au- gust 30th, 1872. Speculators and press correspondents were present from all the surrounding towns and from Chicago. Never before were so many men of note and intelligence gathered at one time in Millington, and everybody was full of enthusiasm. At the close of the ditching the company retired to the hall over Foster's store, where a sumptuous banquet was spread.
The canal was to be two hundred and fifty feet wide and eight feet deep. The route had been surveyed to Post's dam by Mr. Eddy and George Steward in Sep- tember, 1867, when they found the distance to be four and a-half miles, with a fall of twenty-one feet. A plate glass manufactory, employing four hundred men, was in
384
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
prospect, utilizing the white sand quarry. It was also in intention to carry power over the river to the grist mill by wire cable.
Work was begun on the canal at the upper end, and considerable progress made, but the dull times finally caused the work to stop until a revival of business shall warrant its resumption.
The new German Evangelical meeting house on the prairie in Oswego was built in 1871. The German set- tlement dates from 1845, and the first meeting house was erected in 1848. School was held in the basement. The church society was organized about the same time. In 1860 they bought the Presbyterian church building in the village, and have used both houses alternately ever since. The original house is now the school house. The pastors have been : Samuel Tobias, Samuel Dickover, John Hanert, John Schnagel, William Strassburger, Jacob Himmel, Martin Stamm, J. F. Schnee, H. Hintze, J. G. Miller, Henry Bucks, C. Kopp, Christian Hum- mel, J. M. Sindlinger, V. Forkel, John Kuechel, C. Augustine, John Schneider and William Neitz. The Evangelical Association is Methodist in doctrine, and was founded by Jacob Albright about 1800.
CHAPTER LII.
NEW ENTERPRISES.
MONG the enterprises of the year 1872 were the starting of the Yorkville " News," April 2nd, since removed to Plano, and the Mil- lington " Enterprise," in December. The Oswego " Vidette," after a short existence, was taken to Aurora. The Oswego " Bald Hornet" also had a short life. A prospec- tus had been issued for the Newark " Journal," to be a large, seven column paper, but it never appeared. The Newark " Clipper," however, still continues to put in an occasional appearance.
At Yorkville, Hutchinson's ice house was built-one hundred feet square, with a capacity of seven thousand tons. It was expected to ship thirty tons daily to Chi- cago during the summer.
At Plattville, the last of Mr. Platt's flowing wells were sunk. They were located by Mr. Harper, a water wizard, of Plattville, with a forked apple twig held fork downward under his nose. The wells are at the store, house and barn. The deepest is fifty-one feet ; the third, thirty-one feet, and flows unceasingly through a two inch pipe.
386
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
THE MILLBROOK SHOPS
were commenced in 1872, by Edward Budd, as a factory in general, and of " gophers " or corn cultivators in par- ticular. He also manufactured riding plows, and does a business of some twenty thousand dollars a year. Both the gophers and the riding attachment to the plows are Kendall county inventions, and have had a large sale.
They have effected a change in the operations of the field since the days when the double shovel plow and the cast iron mouldboard were the reliances of farmers. In- deed, farming, with other employments, is fast losing its drudgery. It remains but to substitute some other motive power for horses, and the day in which it will be done is doubtless approaching.
Millbrook owes much of its prosperity to the enter- prise of the Budds. Tunis Budd was here in 1844, from Duchess county. New York. He bought the farm where Edward now lives of Stephen Bates. Mathew came in 1846, and Edward and Jacob soon afterwards.
In 1872 Milford's new name was changed by some sudden but unobserved process from Mellington to Mill- ington.
No notable accidents are to be recorded. The previous summer Andrew Widdup was drowned in the river at Millington. There was, however, a tragedy at Oswego in September. Samuel West shot and killed Mark New- berry. It was a repulsive case, caused by scandal, and it was difficult to decide on which party to bestow sym- pathy. The murderer was sentenced to the penitentiary for life.
387
INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENT OF '73.
EARLY IN 1873,
a peddler, calling himself J. Johnson, was murdered just over the line in LaSalle, near Mr. Terry's. The body was carried down into the Mission timber, where it was found. The murdered man's real name was after- ward found to be Samuel Davis, and he was supposed to be the moneyed man of the company. Two years after- wards, a man sentenced to be executed in Germany, con- fessed on the gallows to having committed a murder near Sheridan, Illinois. Undoubtedly it was the same man, followed thousands of miles and overtaken at last by justice.
December 24th, on his eighty-first birthday, Marcus Misner was thrown from his buggy by being tipped over a little bridge, and lived but two days.
During the year, a county " Teachers' Association" was organized. Also, a "Farmers' Association," Lott Scofield being President. The members of the latter will be better known under their national title of "Grang- ers." This organization grew like corn in summer, and became an important, and in some States a controlling element in politics. It called general attention to many abuses, and in some things accomplished a needed reform.
The Young school, Bristol, was opened in 1873. The following have been teachers : William Wing, Mer- rill Fellows, Mrs. Rathbun and Grace Putney.
The cemetery in the neighborhood is known as the Jacob Keck graveyard. The first burial was Alonzo Staley.
The " Horse Association," of Plano, is a recent organ- ization. They have at present ten stallions and several
388
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
trotters and thoroughbreds. One imported Clyde, from Scotland, weighs a hundred weight more than a ton, while a Shetland mare and tiny colt would both of them hardly weigh four hundred pounds, and are worth a dol- lar a pound.
One of the best remembered
EVENTS OF 1875
is the death of Newton S. Grimwood, then local reporter for the Evening Journal, who accompanied Prof. Donaldson in his last balloon ascension, July 15th. They went up from Chicago, were carried over the lake out of sight, and were never again heard of alive. A body believed to be that of Grimwood was found on the Michigan beach, and buried. His father, William Grimwood, of Bristol, is an old settler of 1843.
The Seward town house was built in 1876. Unfor- tunately, there is no center road in that township, and the voters have not yet been able to agree where the hall shall stand, whether north or south of the centre of the town.
In Little Rock village, a Union church, costing $2,- 400, was completed. It is open to preachers of different denominations. Early preachers in that vicinity have been : Baptist-John Beaver ; Protestant Methodist- Mr. Woolston and Mr. Rogers ; Episcopal Methodist- Dr. Arnold and Mr. Batcheldor ; Presbyterian-Henry Bergen.
The Chicago, Millington and Western
NARROW GAUGE RAILROAD
was chartered in 1872, and the preliminary survey made through to Muscatine, two hundred miles, in 1873. But
MILLINGTON MANUFACTURING ENTERPRISES. 389
the financial crisis of that year retarded further opera- tion until 1875, when grading was begun from Chicago, going west. It enters the city on Twenty-second street. At the present time the road is completed to Fullers- burg, nineteen miles, and most of the grading is done to Warrenville. Another route has been surveyed via Plainfield, and it is not yet determined which shall be chosen. This latter survey was made in 1876, and is said to be the eleventh railroad survey that has been made over the Plainfield prairies,-and they keep their mail stage yet.
The Millington
ENAMEL WORKS
were opened in the spring of 1876. D. W. Clark, of Park Ridge, Illinois, was the patentee of the process. The works were ninety-five by one hundred and twenty- four feet; the two enameling kilns, twenty-four feet in diameter and thirty-five feet high, and holding twenty- thousand bricks each, including the saggers, or cases of fire clay. The works were built by a stock company, at a cost of $13,000. The first process was to melt the enameling material together in a small kiln,-this was the essential part of the patent,-after which it was ground in a mill, mixed with water and the bricks dipped in the solution. Four or five bricks were placed in each sagger, and the whole subjected in the great kilns to an intense heat for thirty-six hours. But before the first lot were burned the works took fire and burned down, and have not been rebuilt.
THE BOOT AND SHOE FACTORY at Plano is under the same management as the tannery ;
390
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
S. W., and E. Jacobs, Superintendents. They use up the tannery stock, except the harness leather, and do a business at present of $25,000 a year. The work is systematized as in the largest establishments. The leather first goes to the cutter, who cuts out the fronts, backs and soles ; then the crimper shapes the fronts and uppers to the foot ; the fitter sews the fronts and backs together ; the bottomer puts on the soles; the finisher finishes the soles ; the treer finishes the fronts; and the packer puts up the finished boots in cases of twelve pairs each, assorted sizes.
The Plano Baptist church was organized in 1877. Its history dates "back to 1836, when Rev. John Beaver organized a little church in Jacob Crandall's slab house, in the edge of the timber, west of the present site of Plano. The constituent members were : John Beaver, Enos Ives, P. Clark, A. Bush and J. Crandall, and their wives, old Mr. Darnell, and others. It did not continue. however, and in 1860 another church was formed in Plano village by Rev. Mr. Kinne. That, too, after some years, ceased to be active. The present church was gathered by Rev. L. Steward, who is still the pastor.
CHAPTER LIII.
OUR NATURAL POSSESSIONS.
OME OF the natural possessions of Ken- dall county have already been alluded to. Here they are grouped together. We have no wide forests or deep mines ; all that nature has given us that need be noticed are modifications of those two indispensable elements-water and soil. And we are content. Blessed water! Praises to the old chemical symbol, HO, 9 ! We have it here, and that which is good. Not the draining of the sloughs, but the filterings of the rocks is our drink. And we have the ornamental as well as the more generally useful.
THE MAGNETIC SPRINGS
are at Mr. Platt's, in Plattville. There are a dozen dif- ferent sorts of mineral springs, according to the nature of the rock through which they percolate, and each sort is useful for a corresponding class of disorders. Platt's springs being somewhat electrical, are helpful in rheu- matism and nervous disorders. A knife blade rubbed on the iron tubing becomes magnetized, and may be raised by a door key. The water is unusually bland and pleas-
392
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
ant, and horses and cattle drink immoderate quantities of it. These springs belong to the class of Sulphated Chalybeate waters, viz : impregnated with iron and sul- phur. Four miles further down as water runs are the true
SULPHUR SPRINGS,
on J. W. House's land. The first, in front of his house, is not so valuable, but the larger one in the grove emits a strong aroma of sulphur. This water is beneficial in scrofulous and skin diseases, and is as good for the well as for the sick. There are many sulphur springs in every country, and they are among the most valuable of nature's gifts to us.
Passing from water, we may come to our
SOILS.
Grateful soil! Not the tough clay of the woodland is ours, nor the porous sand that scours the plow but cheats the harvest. No, no, Kendall county crops have for their support the black humus, the slow product of sixty centuries of vegetation. Soils are formed by the disin- tegration of rocks and the decay of vegetable matter, and are named after the sort of rock from which their mineral elements have come. Sandstone makes a sandy soil, and limestone a loamy soil. Ours is mostly the latter. And with groves every few miles, which pro- mote moisture and draw the rain, we are not subject to the long droughts of surrounding counties, whose flat plains are almost treeless.
Coming to the less useful, we have good
PEAT
in several places in the county, and especially on the
393
PEAT AND COAL.
north side of the river, near Wing's mill, where a deposit one hundred acres broad and six feet thick awaits the day when wood shall be scarce and coal shall be dear, in order that it may be utilized. Peat is of the nature of coal, and is formed by the decomposition of reeds or grass, as coal is formed from the decomposition of soft wood. Coal, too, has been pressed together by the weight of overlying earth and rock, while peat is near the surface and is not pressed. Coal that has not
been through the " press" is called lignite. Peat is formed in bogs, which differ from sloughs in that the latter is simply black mire, while the former is a spongy mass held together by the rootlets of plants. Sloughs, too, are usually covered by an even coat of grass, while bogs are varied with grassy hillocks rising above the rest and having a firmer soil. Sloughs, when drained, will raise good crops, but bogs are comparatively worth- less. There are two varieties of peat, viz : black and brown, the former being the more perfect; but that found in this vicinity is generally brown. The deposit along the river, by Wing's mill, is by far the largest in the county. Two public roads run over it. Pieces of drift- wood and well preserved logs are found in it. The entire vicinity was once a lake, and has been filling up with pre- served vegetation and the debris of annual freshets. To obtain the peat, remove about eighteen inches of the surface soil, when a substance is reached looking like buried sods, which can be cut into firm cakes with a spade. Thoroughly dried in the sun, it makes good fuel, and a hot fire.
26
394
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
Passing from peat to
SAND,
we have enough in this county for plastering purposes, and further we crave not. It does not desolate our fields nor fill the air when the wind blows, but stays quietly in its own beds until it is fetched, -it may be at fifty cents a load, besides the hauling. But it is better to buy what one wants than to have more than he wants for nothing. We also have a good quality of
MOULDING SAND,
a kind that is comparatively rare. Indeed, it is prop- erly an earth, or rather a mixture of clay and sand. It is used by moulders in making castings. Pure sand does not pack close enough, and pure earth packs too close, and does not allow the gases to escape. A fine deposit of moulding sand is found near Montgomery, and another south of Wing's mill. opposite the peat bed. But our most valuable sand property is the Millington quarry of
WHITE SAND,
in the ancient formation known in geology as the St. Peter's sandstone. It comes to the surface in spots in nearly all the Western States. It forms a large part of the Illinois and Fox river bluffs. The famous Starved Rock is wholly composed of it. It is found deepest on Rock river, above the village of Oregon, but is so stained with oxide of iron, or drippings of iron, as to be useless, except for scenery. It looks at a distance like masses of painted rock. The mineral spring of Ottawa, though coming from a depth. as is supposed, of four hundred
395
GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.
feet, has its source in this sand rock. The "Pictured Rocks" and copper mines of Lake Superior are of the same age. The usual gray color of the rock is owing to the red iron stains being removed by organic matter. It is the most remarkable formation in the State, and is the oldest in this part, with the exception of the hydraulic limestone at LaSalle and Utica, from which the well known cement is made.
The value of the Millington quarry arises from the fact that it has never been colored by oxide of iron or other mineral salts, and is, therefore, perfectly pure. It is in reality a river bluff, but is a third of a mile back from the river, on the edge of the valley.
The face of the quarry is about twenty-five rods long, and thirty feet high in the centre, and where not fresh quarried is browned by the weather and discolored by the rain trickling down from above. The sand rock lies in oblique layers four or five feet thick, inclined most to the west; each layer stratified in thin sheets. At the east side the layers are horizontal, and the hill is finished off by a deposit of clay and gravel, which also covers the entire rock to the depth of three feet. This east end was therefore deposited first, at the bottom of a lake or shallow sea, which afterwards began to dry up : or the shores were elevated, and each portion of the western part of the hill became successively the sloping beach of the receding sea. In a subsequent age the east end was partially carried away by a river or torrent, and the clay and gravel piled up as a bandage to the amputated rock.
What a strange looking world it must have been in those St. Peter's sandstone days, before the sand was
396
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
reddened with iron, or made gray by the dye being washed out. Broad sheets and long lines of purest white wherever the low flats and sand beaches protruded them- selves above the water. Yet it is hardly correct to speak of the world as being white, for this peculiar formation covered only what is now the lead region of the northwest, and is found nowhere else on the continent. The whole subject of its origin is shrouded in mystery. It comes very useful, however, and we can see now that the resources of our inland States would have been incom- plete without it-a fact the Creator saw from the begin ning.
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