USA > Illinois > Kendall County > History of Kendall county, Illinois, from the earliest discoveries to the present time > Part 8
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SEVEN THOUSAND POTTAWATOMIES
were assembled in tents in the timber on the north bank of the Chicago river, and there the Government made a treaty with them by which they ceded all their remain- ing territory east of the Mississippi, and a good deal west of it. So earnest was the Government in having them fully represented, that the farmers were hired to take in their wagons all who were not provided with ponies. A few days afterwards, five government wagon loads of silver half dollars, to help pay the annuities,
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HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
toiled up through the sloughs to Chicago, stopping at Plattville over night. The Indians, however, did not all disappear for three or four years after that. They went in detachments, tardily and unwillingly, and often returned in smaller parties to visit again their old homes. They hunted small game in the groves, fished along the streams, and gleaned in the wheat fields in harvest time. They were frequent visitors at the houses of the settlers, always stealing in softly, so that often they were not per- ceived. Such was the instinct of their wild nature. Especially in storms did they seek the white man's shel- ter. Boys used to play with them, wrestle with them, run races with them, and sometimes go off to the river to visit them. They learned to like pork, but did not stay in one place long enough to raise a hog, so were fain to procure the coveted bacon from the more stationary pale face. It was therefore a common occurrence for an In- dian to come to the door with a string of fish, or some other catch, and making his wants known without any store of useless verbiage, say : "Pork, how swap ?" They wore nothing on their heads, winter or summer. With moccasins and leggins of rawhide, and filthy blan- ket, they passed through all weather. Loose deer hair was stuffed into their moccasins in winter to keep the feet warm. The same dress constituted part of the out- fit of a
GENERATION OF PIONEERS,
who were passing away as the eastern settlers came in. They added only a coon-skin cap, with the tail dangling behind, and a deerskin frock, open in front and belted in the middle, forming convenient wallets on each side
121
TRADERS AND KEEL BOATMEN.
for chunks of hoe cake and jerked venison. They were hunters, trappers and traders, and from continued asso- ciation with the Indians became half savage in manners and appearance. Of a similar stripe were the keel boat men of the same period. The keel boat was long and narrow, with running boards along each side, on which stood the fifteen or twenty hands needed to push the boat up stream, with setting poles. One man always stood astride of the steering oar, and another might gen- erally be seen on deck sawing away at a fiddle with the most desperate energy. They were on the rivers what the trappers were on the land, only more so, as they had opportunities for getting together in larger numbers and having lawless sprees. The keel boat and the trading post have passed away ; and the old emigrant wagon, too, with its broad tires and heavy tongue, its high and curving side-boards, ribbed and barred and riveted, glar- ing in red paint, and the four horses or oxen toiling along before it. And now that we are at it, we might swell the list of obsoletes indefinitely, winding up with the hatchels, wooden plows and tinder boxes. The lat- ter were almost indispensable, but not always available or attainable. The settlers usually kept fire covered up all night in the ashes on the hearth, but sometimes it went out, and then if they had no tinder they would have recourse to powder and gun, or borrow of their neigh- bors. The early settlers in Seward often brought fire- brands from Plainfield, ten miles away, and it was a vex- ation that sometimes happened that when within half a mile of their homes, the cherished spark would shut its eyes and expire.
9
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HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
During the night of November 13th, 1833, occurred the famous
FALLING OF THE STARS,
continuing until daylight, which put an end to the scene. Those who saw it never forgot it to their dying day. In this section it was cloudy the first part of the night, and only those who were up before the first break of day had the opportunity of beholding it. All were awestruck, while many were affrighted, believing that the world was coming to judgment. But when that night comes all the world shall know it, and " every eye shall see Him."
Many explanations have been attempted of this won- der, viz : that they come from volcanoes on the earth, from volcanoes in the moon, from compressed vapor in the atmosphere, from some far away exploded planet, &c. But it is now believed that they revolve in a permanent orbit of their own, like millions of flocks of birds flying around the sun, and sometimes the earth's atmosphere hits them with such a blow as to set them on fire and bring them down.
The following note is from E. Colbert, Professor of Astronomy in Chicago University : "The only theory now accepted by astronomers is that the meteoric mat- ter revolves in a prolonged orbit within the solar sys- tem, extending like a monster leech over about one-quar- ter of the orbit, and each particle revolving in a little more than thirty-three years. The earth passes a cer- tain point in this orbit every November, but only encoun- ters the meteors when they are passing that point at the same time. Our next encounter with the meteor-storm will be before daylight, November 14th, 1899, or a little
123
EMIGRATION OF THIRTY-FOUR.
earlier-the point in which the orbits meet not being stationary."
It may be added that stray meteors are everywhere- invisible by day, but seen every night. They are mostly little fellows. The larger ones we call fire-balls.
In 1834, very early in the season, emigration began to move. Among the earliest were two men from Put- nam county, Mr. Hull and James M. Smith, who in February came up on a prospecting tour. They fol- lowed up Fox river as far as Millbrook, and were so well pleased with the country and carried back such a good report that when they emigrated in the following month, the families of R. Bullard and William Vernon came with them, and they made claims along the Fox river timber, on the south side of the river.
John M. Kennedy and Joseph Weeks came in the same party. The latter was born in Gallatin county, Illinois. Elias Doyle came soon after from the same locality in South Carolina.
During the summer, R. W. Carns, J. S. Murray and E. Dyal came in a company from Camden, South Caro- lina, and settled on the north side of Hollenback's grove. Mr. Carns bought the Harris place of Robert Ford, now owned by Thomas Atherton. Mr. Murray's claim is now owned by George Nichols and Nathaniel Austin, and Mr. Dyal's by William Van Cleve. John A. New- ell, then a young man, came with them. They also brought out two colored women, former slaves, who had been a long time in their families-Dinah in Mr. Carns' family, and Silvie in Mr. Murray's. They were the first colored people in the county and both died here.
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HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
Mr. Hull claimed six hundred acres now owned by Dwight Curtis and Lewis Steward. Mr. Smith joined him on the west, the farm now owned by Nathaniel Aus- tin. Mr. Vernon came next, locating the farms now owned by George Nichols, H. C. Myers and Robert Barron. Mr. Bullard took from Mr. Vernon's claim furrow down as far as Hollenback's Grove. It is still owned by J. M. and J. R. Bullard and Jacob Budd.
About the same time Robert Ford and William Burns bought the Harris claim of
JOHN MATLOCK,
and added more to it on the north side of the grove. Mr. Matlock was from Indiana. His family consisted of five sons : John, who after two years returned again to Indiana ; West, well known as Deacon Matlock, now residing in the town of Kendall ; George, who became a physician and died in California ; Joseph, a lawyer in Marcello, Ind. ; and David, a Baptist pastor, who died at Makanda, Ill. William Paul and Simeon Oatman came with them. The former was Mr. Matlock's son- in-law. He bought of George Hollenback the farm now owned by John Evans, west of Pavilion. The Bristol brothers had it first, and left it. Then Henry Ford took it, and sold to Hollenback. Paul is probably living now, somewhere out West. Oatman is dead. When David Matlock and his father were out prospecting the previous autumn, they slept one night in the bark covered hut erected by the Bristol brothers on their own claim, not more than two rods from John Evans' residence. It snowed in the night, and when they awoke in the morn- ing they were covered with a sheet of snow. It was a
125
MATLOCK, FORD, PRICKETT.
cold reception in the new land, but it did not damp their ardor, though it did their clothes. After selling to Rob- ert Ford, Mr. Matlock bought out James Ford, whose claim covered the present site of Pavilion and the farm of John Kellett. His sons also took other claims towards the river. Henry Ford lived where W. L. Ford does now. The family were from Tazewell county, where they had moved from Ohio in 1825. Samuel Piatt came with them, and taking a claim on the southern point of Long Grove, sent for his mother and the rest of the family. There were three sons and four daughters liv- ing together. But all are gone-scattered or dead. Almon Ives, from Vermont, father of Rev. F. B. Ives, came in and settled between Ford and Matlock, where Mr. Moulton now lives. There was now almost a con- tinuous line of claims from Millbrook to Oswego.
JAMES PRICKETT,
from Champaign county, Ohio, was among the earliest to make a claim at Long Grove, but when he returned with his family the claim was jumped, and he bought another in Apakesha Grove. It is still owned by Elijah Prickett. The only evidence of Mr. Kellogg's claim there was some rails he had cut in the timber. Besides Elijah, Mr. Prickett had three other sons: Charles, now living at Nettle Creek ; John, at Seneca ; and Aaron, below Dwight. Also a daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Bowen, near Lisbon. His first log house had door and floor of basswood puncheons, and still stands back in the grove, a relic of bygone days. He died after being in the country nine years, and his wife survived him but one year.
126
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
Three families from Middlesex county, Mass., came into the neighborhood. One of them, Dea. Isaac Whit- ney, settled on the south edge of Big Grove, opposite Lott Scofield's. His son, Lucius Whitney, born there in 1836, is now postmaster at Morris. The second, Jon- athan Raymond, now residing in Bloomington, made the claim now owned by Mr. Van Buskirk. The third was
DR. GILMAN KENDALL,
now of Lisbon, who settled between the two others, mak- ing claims for himself and younger brother, Sylvanus, on land now owned by David Brown and C. Vreeland. Dr. Kendall had moved to Bond county, Ill., three years previously, and leaving that place, struck out, intending to find a new home somewhere in the region of Chicago. Now occurred two new things in the his-
tory of the county. He put up a frame house. The timbers, to be sure, were split out, but it was a true frame, nevertheless. What sawed stuff was necessary was obtained at Schneider's mill, which started at Bris- tol. The hardware was got at Chicago. There was a store at Ottawa, but people went to the lake for their large trading. But second, the house was located on the prairie, eighty rods from the friendly shelter of the
grove. The settlers were astonished at such audacity and believed the building could not stand. The wind would blow it down ; the cold would pierce it through. But it did stand, and the example was so infectious that the next year Levi Hills moved his log tavern far out upon the prairie, on the site of Lisbon, as a half-way stage station between Plattville and Holderman's.
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CHAPTER XIX.
CLAIM FURROWS.
R. SCHNEIDER having finished Na- per's mill the previous season, put up his own at the mouth of Blackberry creek, that spring-1834. A few days after he came on the ground his oxen broke away and returned to their familiar quarters on the Du Page. He had a man with him who was too timid to venture by himself on the lonely journey, so they went both together, leaving their wagon, tools, chains, and cook- ing utensils on the knoll west of the Blackberry mill. Instead of being absent two days, he was detained two weeks, and returned fully expecting to find his little property stolen by the Indians. But not an article was disturbed, and Mr. Schneider ever had a superior respect for his dusky neighbors.
William and John Thurber, from Chatauqua county, N. Y., came in with Almon Ives. John went on down the river, but William settled on the south side of Long Grove, where the noonday sun would shine the warmest. He had a family of four sons and two daughters, who constitute the present families of Thurbers in this county. After taking his original claim he bought out
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HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
one and another around him until he owned a tract of thir- teen hundred acres of good, available land. He died in 1862. It was the ambition of many of the new-comers to embrace as much land as possible, though it were but to sell again to the next settler. Long claim furrows ran everywhere, across the prairie, around the groves, inter- secting each other, and telling in their mute language of the cross-purposes of mankind. Every man felt that the virgin country was before him, and it was his priv- ilege to be married to as much of it as his squatter sov- ereignty could defend.
David Carpenter and John Dunlap, with an ox team, ran a furrow around their claim, at the head of the big slough, south of Oswego. Soon after, Lemuel Brown and T. B. Mudgett ran their furrow around a still larger section, east of Ebenezer Morgan's, enclosing a part of the other. On this last, excluding what it embraced of the first claim, nine farms are now laid out. But this, besides their own, included also claims for L. B. Judson and Mr. Hill, who had not yet arrived. Over the river, the following year, a claim furrow was run a half day's journey, from Milford far out to the Somonauk prairie. So gloriously large were the ideas of our grandfathers. Mr. Dunlap remained here but a short time. Mudgett stayed several years. L. B. Judson came in the fall. He was from Massachusetts. He bought out Brown, Mudgett, Clark, Dan. Ashley, and others, until he owned seven or eight hundred acres of land. Lemuel Brown's cabin, on the bank of the run, in West Oswego, was the second house in the place.
Another class of men were the professional claim
129
WAUBONSIE AND WHISKY.
speculators. They stayed on a place long enough to stake it out and build a log hut, and sell it for what they could get. Among these was a man by the name of Fowler. He had several sons, and pursued the business for a number of years, both in this and in other coun- ties. At one time he lived between Oswego and Aurora, and occasionally furnished whisky to the Indians, by which rows followed. The settlers made complaint to Fowler, and he stopped it. But Waubonsie, the fierce Pottawatomie giant, who then lived at Oswego, could not do without his fire-water. He could not terrify his braves nor abuse his wives without the aid of the hellish fluid. So when his messenger was refused he sent again. He only wanted a gallon-that would be enough for another precious spree. But the second messenger
returned empty. Then Waubonsie's mighty soul was infuriated, and seizing his royal canoe, he went up the stream like a dusky thunderbolt, crazy for a drunk, and in a short time came back with a barrel half full. At one fell swoop he cleaned out the unfortunate white man. History does not state whether he returned the barrel or kept it for his squaws to stir hominy in.
Several settlers claimed along the Blackberry. Among them were Mr. Lowry, James W. Helm, and John Short. The latter afterwards built the first tavern in Bristol. It stood on the hill above the bridge. He now lives in Iowa. John Darnell, on the Little Rock, was joined by his brothers.
HARTLEY CLEVELAND
settled in the town of Bristol, and ran a breaking team. After three years he made the claim on which he still
130
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
lives, in the town of Na-au-say. There were on it three basswood trees, which could be seen for miles in all directions, and were called the Lone Tree Grove. It had long been a landmark for the Indians, for their trail passed it, and Mr. Cleveland built his cabin over the trail. One tree of the original three still survives, and if it had a tongue in its head it would be a wonder- fully interesting historian, for it had a wide field of observation before orchards and shade trees obstructed the view. Another settler at Long Grove was Abijah Haymond, from Ohio.
AT NEWARK
George B. Hollenback put up another building opposite his store, where Mrs. Niblo's millinery shop now is, and it began to be more widely known as " Hollenback's Trading Post." The second building he sold the next year, 1835, to John C. Phillips, for a tavern. There was also a cabin on Mrs. Cook's corner, opposite S. Bingham's, and that comprised the sum total of Newark in 1834. Out on the north-west edge of Big Grove, Mr. Love, Mr. Moore and one other settler had claims, and Walter Stowell bought them out and lived in Love's cabin. Mr. Stowell had lived for three years on the DuPage, above Naperville, and was originally from Con-
necticut. South of Big Grove, adjoining Deacon Whit- ney's, William Perkins had a field of corn, and Edward Wright, then a young man, husked it for him. Mr. Wright met Perkins in Plainfield, and after the husking was done he went to Whiteside county and remained several years, afterwards settling at Lisbon and finally at Newark. Another settler east of the grove was George
131
BEGINNING OF MILLINGTON.
W. Craig, a brother-in-law of the Havenhills. On November 11th, 1834, a daughter was born to him, who is now Miss Eliza M. Craig, of Plano. Mr. Craig moved to the present site of Waukegan, where his wife died. He afterward died in California. Rev. Jno. Beaver also died in California. He came to Pavilion in 1834, and used to preach occasionally. C. Y. Godard came the same year, traveling all the way from New York on horseback. Caleb Mason, a son-in-law of Daniel Kellogg, came from Vermont, and claimed the old Badgley place, near Newark. He wintered at Kel- logg's. Charles Royal settled above Milford. Thomas Ervin, of Ohio, bought a claim, south side of Long Grove, of Robert Ford, for $100. Lived there eight years, and then bought south on the prairie. There were four sons : Thomas, Robert, William and Edward. George H. and Alexander Rogers date from about this year. The latter made the claim which he afterward sold to John Cook, in the town of Fox. He lived some time in Little Rock. He was a public spirited man, and filled several offices of trust. He was well known as riding a peculiar mule that sometimes balked. His sons were John and William K. Rogers.
AT MILLINGTON
the first beginning was made by Samuel Jackson and George F. Markley, in the fall of 1834. Jackson came from near Cincinnati, and on his way up the Ohio river, falling in with Markley, the two joined fortunes. They were both single men. They took up all Millington, including Marshall Bagwell's farm, and three hundred acres on the other side of the river. They built a log
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HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
cabin on the present site of Joseph Jackson's residence, and began preparations for building a saw mill.
No additional settlements were made in the town of Lisbon. At Platt's, two men died and were buried on the banks of the AuSable. Two saw mills were started -Schneider's at Bristol, and Morgan's in Oswego-but not in time to do much that season. Fielding and Mar- shall Havenhill and Mr. Booth hauled logs to the mill at Munsontown, on Big Indian Creek, to get lumber for cabin floors. Up to that time their floors had been the hard ground-floors which required no scrubbing, save that which could be given with the round splint broom that stood in the corner or hung by a string outside.
CHAPTER XX.
THE GOVERNOR'S PARTY.
EARLY all of our early settlers were from the east, but many of them, as we have seen, were from the south. John and Frederick Witherspoon were from North Carolina, and settled in Little Rock. The latter became a Protestant Methodist preacher, and died near Som- onauk. The former, after some years, returned to his southern home, and thereupon the following story is told of him. During the war, Sergeant Geo. Sherman, of Co. K, 127th Illinois, while on the celebrated march to the sea, went into a house in North Carolina, with a squad of men, to procure dinner. Several young ladies, daugh- ters of the proprietor, were at home, but they looked with scorn on the blue uniforms of our soldiers and refused to move a finger towards getting dinner. The sergeant remonstrated, pleaded, threatened, but the blooming dam- sels were firm in their determination and yielded never an inch. If the hungry warriors had been " butternuts," the best the house afforded should be brought out, but to place southern cake and coffee before northern "yanks,"
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HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
never ! The Southern heart was fired. Loaves for con- federate chivalry, but not one mouldy crumb for the azure-coated children of the North. The sergeant was defeated on a field of his own choosing ; yet, no, he had one shot left in the ammunition box, which he suspects will bring the enemy to terms. " Did you ever live in Illinois, ladies ?" "Yes." "On Fox river ?" "Yes." "And were you acquainted with such and such an one ?"
"Yes, and are you from there ?" "You are the daugh- ters of John Witherspoon ?" " Yes, but who are you ?" "My name is George Sherman, and these men are your old neighbors, so and so." " Is this possible !" And so the battle was won. Smiles chased away the frowns, and the men gained their dinner.
WILLIAM MULKEY
was from Ashe county, North Carolina. With a wife and three children in a two-horse wagon he came to Putnam county, Illinois. It was late in the fall, and he was advised not to go up to Fox river then, as no white men were there, so it was said, and provisions were scarce. He therefore hired a house of Isaac Funk, the great land owner, and came up alone and made his claim two miles above John Darnell's, on the opposite side of the timber from his present residence. Having cut five house logs as his sign manual that the property was spoken for, he returned and moved up his family the ensuing spring. Frank Stotts came with him. Frank had several yoke of oxen and a big Pennsylvania wagon, and he did teaming and breaking for all the country. But he was most cele- brated as a bee hunter. Never was Frank Stotts so like
135
MULKEY, MOORE, JOHNSON.
himself as when with hunter's dress and bee bait he was lining a bee to its treasure home.
Mr. Mulkey soon sold to Moses Inscho, and bought his present place of John C. McKinzie, also from North Carolina. His wife had died of consumption, and was the first one buried in the old cemetery just west of Little Rock village, in 1835. After that he had no more wish to stay in Illinois, and selling his claim to Mulkey he went back desolate to the old home.
Richard Moore made his claim on the other side of Big Rock creek from John and Benjamin Evans. Others came who remained but a short time, and returned or pushed on to other fields, their very names having passed out of rememberance.
Oliver Johnson, of Chatauqua county, New York, arrived October 12th, just in time to attend the funeral of one of William Thurber's children, at Mr. Matlock's. Sermon by Rev. Royal Bullard. Mr. Johnson sheltered his family in Lyman Bristol's log cabin at Yorkville, and while there entertained Rulief Duryea and James Cornell, who were around looking for a location. From the cabin on the hill the country on the Bristol side of the river lay spread out like a panorama before Mr. Johnson's eyes every day, and there he resolved to settle, making the claim now owned by Price Boyd. His wife, Mrs. Sylvia B. Johnson, was the first white woman on Bristol soil. He built his cabin walls up as high as Mrs. Johnson could reach, and waited until some one looking for land should come along to help him raise the remaining logs.
In Seward, the next settler after House and Shurtliff
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HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
was Eli Gleason, then unmarried; then followed, in the same year, Alanson Milks, who afterward bought and sold a number of prominent tavern stands ; Josiah White- man, who, with his family, was much of the time sick with the ague, and removed to Plainfield ; and
JOEL A. MATTESON,
wife and child. The latter bought of Mr. House, on the east side of the creek, land now owned by William Leg- gett. He and Dr. Oliver Corbin, Joseph Gleason, Jer- emiah J. Cole, and Mr. Lamb, before their families came out, kept house together in the AuxSable timber, on Matteson's claim, a part of the winter, while getting out logs for their houses and rails to fence their fields. It is not often that such a notable company of frontiers- men are found together as that season, camped in the far-off wilds of Seward. In 1836 Matteson met C. B. Ware on the wharf in Detroit, brought him out here, sold to him, and removed to Joliet, where he went on increasing until 1852, when he became Governor of the State of Illinois. Henry Fish, of Joliet, was his wife's little brother, and will not shrink from having it remem- bered that when a barefooted boy he went after the cows, or drove the oxen many a day. And he doubtless did it well. Dr. Corbin has also acquired a reputation, and J. J. Cole will readily be recognized as a former County Clerk and Treasurer. He and the Gleasons built the first frame house on what is known as " the ridge," a swell of land between the DuPage and the AuxSable. It is some sixty feet high, about a mile wide, and can be traced the whole length of the DuPage river, from its rise in Cook county to its mouth at the Illinois river.
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