USA > Illinois > Kendall County > History of Kendall county, Illinois, from the earliest discoveries to the present time > Part 9
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137
FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE IN COUNTY.
Here and there along its course are views of surpassing beauty, and it was those spots that were selected by the pioneers. The splendid site of Gleason's house, near the south Na-au-say line, is now deserted. All those early comers mentioned were from New York.
Sometime in the summer Frink and Walker started a stage line from Chicago to Galena, crossing the Fox river at Oswego, then called Hudson by the New York settlers. In the fall, the
FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE
in the county was erected at Pavilion, about eighty rods north of the present Academy. C. B. Alvard was the first teacher. It was a log house, with slabs for benches, and has years ago disappeared.
At this time three families came to Aurora, and built the first cabin in that busy town, on a site by the river, above the present site of the cemetery ; but Waubonsie's claim had not been extinguished, and they removed to Montgomery, then called Graytown, and to Naperville for the winter. One of the families was that of Seth Reed, whose daughter, Mrs. Prentiss, is a resident of Newark. Mrs. Reed made the first flag ever raised in Aurora, July 4, 1836.
In Ottawa there were fourteen houses, six on the north side, and eight on the south, including the old fort with its stockade in front. So it appears in a draw- ing of the place made by J. M. Roberts, dated March 7th, 1834.
10
CHAPTER XXI.
THE PLEDGE AND THE COVENANT.
T IS the popular impression that fron- tiersmen are as a class profane and irre- ligious characters, but this is not true of the great body of our Kendall county forefathers. Some of them were, but more of them were not, and the present religious character of our county is addi- tional proof of this assertion. For it is with places as with men-the after life is shaped very much by the early training. The boy is father to the man. If one inquires into the antecedents of either a pleasant and desirable, or a rough and undesirable neigh- borhood, he will be likely to find the same characteris- tics in its first settlers, or in that part of them that gave tone to the society or the settlement. And it is proper that we, who shake the tree our fathers planted, should regard it enough to preserve the record of the planting. The laborers have gone, but their work is our wealth ; the travelers have passed, but their footprints are our heritage.
There lies before me, as I write, a document yellow with age. It is made by pasting with wafers two half
139
TEMPERANCE SOCIETY.
sheets of letter paper together. It is Kendall county's
FIRST TEMPERANCE PLEDGE,
drawn up and signed in June, 1834, and contains the names of a large proportion of the settlers then on the ground. The names of the men are signed in one col- umn and the ladies in another, as follows :
For the purpose of promoting the cause of temperance in our vicinity, we pledge ourselves, each to the other, that we will not use ardent spirits of any kind, except in the case of extreme necessity ; nor will we have them used in our employ, nor give them to our work people, or visitors, or others, but will discountenance their use on all proper occasions, both by example and influence.
Prairie La Belle, June Ist, 1834.
NAMES. R. BULLARD,
NAMES. HANNAH CUNNINGHAM,
LYMAN BRISTOL,
RACHEL HOLLENBACK,
EDWARD G. AMENT,
ANNA HOLLENBACK,
BURR BRISTOL,
SUSAN AMENT,
PETER WYKOFF,
EMILY ANN AMENT,
JUSTUS C AMENT,
MARY MISNER,
FRED. WITHERSPOON,
MILLY MISNER,
HENRY S. MISNER,
MARY BOOTH,
GILMAN KENDALL,
ESTHER L. BULLARD,
LEVI HILLS,
NANCY IVES,
EBEN M. HILLS,
JOHN WEST MASON,
SYLVANUS KENDALL,
ALMON IVES,
ALMON B. IVES, SIMEON P. IVES.
Four of these signers are still among us : Mr. Ament, in Newark ; Mr. Mason, in Big Grove ; and Dr. Ken- dall and brother, in Lisbon. Most of them have been dead many years, but so much at least of their works we are glad to have live.
140
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
About the time this pledge was circulated, the
FIRST SUNDAY SCHOOL
in the county was organized, and held at Mr. Matlock's, in Pavilion. Almon Ives was Superintendent, and sole teacher, for he formed the school into a class and taught it himself. On Sunday afternoons the same children wended their way through the groves and along the Indian trails to the Sunday School, as afterward sat on the split puncheons in the log school house, under the teach- ing of Mr. Alvard. The following spring another Sun- day School was organized in Mr. Bullard's house, he becoming Superintendent. This year two churches were organized in the county. The first one was the
BIG GROVE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.
The early settlers in that vicinity were largely Con- gregationalists, and the idea of forming a church for the purpose of watching over each other and for the more regular ministry of the Word, had occurred to more than one, but it was not carried out until Rev. Samuel Grid- ley came in with his family sometime during the summer. He was from Williamstown, Massachusetts. He called on all the families in the neighborhood, found out how many Congregationalists there were, and appointed a day at Mr. Mason's house. He preached to the assem- bled company, after which a covenant and articles of faith were adopted, and eighteen persons put their names thereto. Among them were Messrs. Gridley, Mason, Eben and Levi Hills, Gilman and Sylvanus Kendall, and Isaac Whitney, with their wives. The meetings of the little "church in the wilderness" were held at Mr.
141
FIRST RELIGIOUS MEETINGS.
Mason's during the season. Mr. Gridley was the first pastor, but soon removed with his family to Ottawa, where he has a son still living.
The next two years the meetings were held in the school house in the middle of the grove. Revs. Green- wood, Perry, Benjamin Smith and Calvin Bushnell were the preachers. At the latter's first preaching service, James Codner, of Lisbon, and Mr. Ford, of Chebanse, opened the house and made the fire.
The meeting house was built in 1837. Anthony Lit- sey gave two acres of land for the site, a few rods north- east of his own dwelling. Others contributed the logs and slabs. Abraham Holderman gave the nails. Every- body helped in some way, whether church members or not, and the work was soon done. The walls were of round logs, and floor boards and shingles were split out with an axe. The seats were rough benches, and the heating apparatus was a brick fireplace. Rev. Calvin Bushnell was the first pastor. Then followed Revs. Smith, Elliott, Stewart, Perry and Loughead. The building was also used as a school house. Among the teachers were Miss Charlotte Wright, of Newark, now Mrs. Hubbard, of Elgin : Lucy Lester ; Miss Whitney, now Mrs. Booth, of Newark; George Norton, of Lis- bon ; and William Cody, now of Morris. While Miss Whitney was teaching, her brother, Deacon Whitney, put in a new stove, costing five dollars. The house stood a quarter of a century, and only a few scattering bricks now mark the site of the first church building in Ken- dall county. Around that spot on Sabbath days strings of ox teams were hitched, and the fathers and grand-
142
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
fathers of the present generation stood in knots about the door, or seated on the benches within, listened to the preacher's words. On that spot often the Holy Spirit descended, and converts standing upon the puncheon floor related with joy and trembling voices their first Christian experience, so that the gospel aroma going out not only blessed but made famous the entire neighborhood. A young lady from another locality, who was engaged to teach there, said she was "going where God was."
THE LONG GROVE BAPTIST CHURCH,
now Pavilion, was organized by Rev. A. B. Freeman, at the house of Almon Ives. There were but six members, viz : Rev. J. F. Tolman, wife, son and daughter, and Mr. Ives and wife. Mr. and Mrs. Matlock joined soon after, and several others. In December the church was formally recognized, and Mr. Freeman baptized David Matlock, probably the first convert baptized in Fox river. Some ten years afterward Brother Matlock re- ceived a license to preach, and was subsequently ordained near Galena, while employed there in hauling charcoal, and has since made full proof of his ministry. Elder Freeman died within a few weeks after the organization of the church, and Rev. J. F. Tolman became the first pastor, and continued so for twelve years, receiving but one hundred dollars yearly salary. He was from Need- ham, Massachusetts, and was descended from genuine Puritan stock. One of his sons is a valued member of the church at Batavia. Another is pastor at Baldwins- ville, New York. A third is District Secretary, at Chicago, of the American Baptist Missionary Union,
143
MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL.
and has himself been a missionary to Burmah. A daughter is Mrs. Prof. Bacon, of Chicago. Mr. Tolman died at Sandwich, March 28th, 1872, aged eighty-eight years. He was well known as "Father Tolman." He was succeeded at Pavilion by Rev. Shadrack Walker in 1847, Rev. Ebenezer Scofield in 1848, and Rev. John Young in 1850, Mr. Scofield was ordained there, and was afterwards killed by the cars.
REV. A. B. FREEMAN
was one of our pioneer missionaries, and a faithful man. He took cold while returning from Pavilion to Chicago, riding in the rain, lived but a short time, and was buried in the old burying ground, a short distance up the North branch. It was near Archibald Claiborne's brickyard, on the open prairie, with no fence or enclosure of any kind. Mrs. Freeman desired her husband's grave en- closed, and employed S. S. Lathrop, of Bristol, then a carpenter in Chicago, to do the work. The lumber yard was kept by Mr. Carver, a profane man, but when Mr. Lathrop offered to pay for the boards, the other refused, saying : "Take it along ; I guess I can do that much for Elder Freeman." The adjoining grave was that of Mr. Alden, a cousin of B. F. Alden, of Bristol, and as there was lumber enough, the fence was put around both graves. But all was obliterated years ago, and to-day it is impos- sible to identify the spot. Milwaukee avenue is laid out over the ground.
When the Bristol Baptist church was formed, the members at Pavilion went there, and the latter organiza- tion was abandoued. But in a few years it was reorgan- ized, and since then there have been flourishing churches
144
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
at both points. The meeting house at Pavilion was built in 1850. Rev. William Haigh, afterwards chaplain of the 36th Illinois, and now pastor at Galesburg, was ordained at Pavilion, and became the first pastor after the house was built. He was followed by Mr. Gale, John Newell, R. B. Ashley, A. D. Freeman, Jonas Woodard, J. B. Dibell, John Wilkins, David Matlock, John Hudson, Asa Prescott.
THE METHODISTS.
had classes at Bullard's, Millbrook, and Daniel Pearce's, Oswego, but no church organization. This county was included in what was called the Des Plaines Mission. In 1855 it became the Fox river circuit, and Rev. Wil- liam Royal was transferred to it from the Fort Clark Mission, now Peoria. He formed classes also at Samuel McCarty's Aurora ; Charles Geary's, Wheaton ; Mr. Enoch's, Rockford; Mr. Mason's, Belvidere; and at Marengo, Crystal Lake, Dundee, and other points. Mr. Royal was from West Virginia, and was admitted to the Illinois Conference in 1831. In 1834 he held a camp meeting at the Sulphur Springs, then called Debolt's, below Ottawa. He was a faithful preacher, and his name is held in reverence by all who remember him. In 1853 he removed to Oregon for his health. In crossing the plains he would not travel on Sunday, and on that account he was left behind with two other families. But, remark- ably enough, they reached their destinations some time before the larger company, and, unlike them, did not lose one thing by the Indians. He died triumphantly September 29th, 1870. His brother, Charles Royal, has a son now living twelve miles south of Morris.
145
LAYING OUT VILLAGE OF NEWARK.
And so, leaving the temperance pledge and the church covenant to stand guard over the year 1834, we bid it farewell, and pass on to the next.
CHAPTER XXII.
SPECULATION AND BUSINESS.
E NOW enter upon the year 1835- the year of the beginning of the seven years' Seminole war in Florida-the year of the great fire in New York, December 16th-the year the public debt of the United States was wholly paid up, and the ship of State, losing its ballast, went plunging on into extravagant specula- tions and appropriations for internal improvements, which ended in the wreck of 1837. Emigrants in 1835 came West in increased numbers. In the town of
BIG GROVE,
John C. Phillips and Geo. B. Hollenback laid out the village of Newark, calling it Georgetown. Major Hitt, now living in Ottawa, was the surveyor, and made his corners by running out from the Indian boundary line on the south end of Dr. Sweetland's farm, by Kellogg's
146
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY. .
grove. Mr. Phillips was from Lancaster county, Penn- sylvania, and died in 1849 of the cholera. He went one Friday to the Illinois river to do some work for Abe Holderman, died the next day, and was buried on Sun- day. In 1835 he bought Geo. B. Hollenback's second building, now Mr. Wunder's ice house. It is one of the oldest frame buildings in the county. Another is Dr.
Kendall's first house, now Simeon Brown's barn. Mr Brown moved it in 1851, and the operation took sixty yoke of oxen and seventy-five men three days. The old roof was replaced ten years ago, and the frame is as sound as ever. At the other end of the town, Levi Hills moved his log house from the grove to the present site of Lisbon. It was the first house in Lisbon, and stood where Henry Sherrill's stone house now stands. The prairie settlement was immediately increased by the arrival of Horace Moore and his two sons, who took up a large tract of land, and have been identified with Lis- bon ever since. James Root came with them, but after- ward returned east. William Richardson, a single man, drove one of Root's teams. He died at Lisbon in 1857. These were all from Oneida county, New York. From the same vicinity came Rev. Calvin Bushnell. His wife and family of ten children joined him the following spring. Also Zenas McEwen and his sons William and Ezra. He went back after his family and returned in 1838, settling at Lisbon. Also, William B. Field, who entered the farm now owned by Rev. J. H. Kent. He kept it three years, and sold to Mrs. Sears, a widow with three children, and removed to Newark. He died in Morris in 1866.
147
A LOG SCHOOL HOUSE.
During the fall a log school house was built in the center of Big Grove, so as to accommodate the settlers on the borders of the timber, each of whom made a path of their own among the trees and through the hazel and wild gooseberry bushes, along which the children went to school and the families went to meeting. Earl Adams was the first teacher, and George Norton succeeded him. Mr. Adams died two years ago. Mr. Norton is still the pop- ular town clerk of Lisbon. The official schedules of that early school in the woods would be interesting, but they are undoubtedly lost. In addition to the settlers already mentioned in the town of
LISBON,
George W. Edmunds, from New York, settled near Platt's-the only cabin between Platt's and House's. Another was T. G. Wright, but the prairie towns did not fill up as rapidly as the timbered towns. In
SEWARD
a log school house was built on Mr. House's land, in the Aux Sable timber, by Messrs. House, Mattison and White- man. Miss Sarah Gilman, now Mrs. Miles Royce, of Plain- field, was the first teacher. The children she taught are our grandfathers and grandmothers now, and some are passed away to the better land, but doubtless she still loves to remember that homely school house, around which the wolf tracks could be seen on winter mornings, and to recall the happy faces of her scholars as they ranged themselves after recess on the rough benches. Several families afterward moved away, and there was no more school for two or three years. In the town of
FOX
a number of new families settled. At Millington the
148
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
frame of the saw-mill went up, and the dam was started at a point opposite a large island, covered with heavy timber. Of the island, only a little remnant is left, and the saw-mill was carried away by the freshet a year ago. In the fall, Jesse Jackson came out on horseback pros- pecting, from Fayette county. Pennsylvania, and made arrangements for moving his family out in the ensuing spring. Fletcher Misner, the only survivor of our pio- neer blacksmiths, came in and worked in a shop on the Millbrook road, opposite Mr. Crimmins'. In the fall of the next year he removed to Newark, and had his shop where the hotel stands, and his residence where D. E. Munger lives.
In the timber between H. C. Myers' and the river, a new store was opened by William Vernon and Willet Murray. The frame still stands, and is used by Robert Barron for a shop. Over the line in LaSalle, Levi Rood settled on the same farm on which he died. His brother, Lancelot Rood, came out in 1834, and was for years the surveyor and one of the leading men of the settlement.
Joseph Mason, who settled afterwards near Norway, was in 1835 the blacksmith at Holderman's, using the tools bought by Holderman of George B. Hollenback. He lived a little while at George Hollenback's, Sr., and while there dug the first grave in the Newark and Mil- lington cemetery. It was in 1836, for a man by the name of Smith, who lived with Owen Haymond and who formerly owned the Bates claim, at Millbrook. After a year or two, Mr. Mason was able to buy a set of tools for himself, and he opened the shop on the place where he now is.
149
PIONEER OF MILLBROOK.
Isaac Grover may be claimed as the pioneer of Mill- brook. His farm covered the site of that village, and he lived first down by the ford, and afterward in the edge of the river timber, west of the town and north of the railroad track. An old house belonging to Edward Budd still stands there. In
LITTLE ROCK
John Haymond bought out Mr. Cox, in the Rob-Roy timber. Barnabas E. Eldridge, commonly called Bar- ney Eldredge, bought out Mr. McJimpsey, in the Big Rock timber, and resided on the claim until his death. John Cook claimed on the other side of the creek.
Mr. Eldredge and John Wheeler came together from Schoharie county, New York. On the boat they fell in with J. S. Cornell, who told them of the beauties of the Fox river country, and invited them to accompany him. From Chicago, however, they went out along Rock river, but not finding a spot to their liking, they came to the Fox and settled. Mr. Wheeler lives still on his original claim.
James Mason, for sixteen dollars worth of breaking, bought of Robert Ford his slender title to a thousand acres, more or less, along the river, in the southern part of the town, taking the mouth of Rock Creek for the center. No mortal plow could run a claim furrow around such a romantic tract, so Mr. Mason confined his plow- ing to a little field for corn, and built his cabin among the trees down by the Greenfield spring, in Fox, and was "right glad" to sell out to Fred. Witherspoon, after a few months, for one hundred dollars, in " truck."
150
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
Moses Inscho and Henry Winters came in August, and the former bought Mulkey's claim, and let Winters have it. Mr. Inscho had several sons. He was an old man, and after three years' residence here was found one day by the Little Rock ford, dead. It was supposed that he laid down to drink and was taken with apoplexy.
A family of Clark boys, Josiah, Joseph, Merritt and Porter, settled along the east side of Little Rock timber. Their father did not come. Jacob Crandall, Alonzo Tolman, Amos Tenney, N. I. Robbins, Benjamin J. Beck and Sheldon A. Tomblin were also settlers of 1835. Mr. Farley opened a store where John Gilman now lives. His clerk, William L. Church, was after- ward sheriff of Cook county. He sold to Mr. Penfield, who kept the post office. Josiah Lehman opened a hotel on the same place about 1844.
Among the settlers in the town of
KENDALL
were John, James and Robert Evans, from Huron county, Ohio. John came first, making his way on horseback and alone. He bought William Paul's claim, near Pa- vilion, where he still resides. The other two settled at Hollenback's Grove. They went to Missouri in 1857, and died there. Mr. Paul removed to Little Rock. John Evans' log house, built in the fall of 1835, yet stands, and is used as a storehouse. Samuel Inscho came with the Evanses, and settled on the east side of Long Grove. William Campbell settled south of the Grove, near Mrs. Needham's. His brother John came a year or two after.
151
A NEW STORE.
Franklin Winchell, of Chatauqua county, New York, opened a little store near the present site of the Pavilion school house. His brother Horace, unmarried, came with him. Herman came in 1836, Darwin in 1838, and Gurden and George W. with their parents in 1839. There were ten children in the family. The father, Rev. Heman Winchell, Sr., was a Baptist minister, but did not preach here. He died near Plano in 1843. Franklin, Horace and Darwin went to California during the gold fever. George W. was a Newark merchant for twenty-five years.
Rulief Duryea and James S. Cornell had been in business together in New York, and came to Yorkville as a firm. Mr. Cornell came by water with a stock of dry goods, and Mr. Duryea and family came overland. On his journey he bought a span of black horses, "John and Charley." They were true and gentle, and would follow wherever there was a track. He crossed Fox river at the Galena ford, near Montgomery. Arriving at their chosen location, they purchased of Mr. Bristol the claim on which Yorkville stands, and adopted the famous cabin on the court house hill as their future resi- dence. The cabin was twelve by fourteen, one story, slab floor, puncheon door on wooden hinges, rived shingles " staked and ridered " on, logs notched together. Not a nail in all the building. But one window, of four seven-by-nine lights, by the door, and the room was so dark that when pegs were put in the upper log to hang articles on, the occupants would often strike their heads against them. Those wooden pegs were Mrs. Duryea's improvement. Mr. Bristol had got along without them,
152
HISTORY OF KENDALL COUNTY.
but she mentally resolved that she would not live in a house with no " place to put things," and soon succeeded in having the matter fixed to her liking. A new frame building was put up for a store, and the business of Yorkville commenced. The partnership continued until 1838, after which it was continued by Mr. Duryea alone until his death in 1846. He was a generous, kind hearted man, and still remembered with gratitude by many whom he befriended in their need. Mr. Cornell married Marion, a daughter of Titus Howe, and made the first farm on the Rob Roy prairie, in Bristol. The frame then erected still forms part of his residence.
During the summer, John L. Clark and John K. LeBarron, after a horseback tour down the river, bought out the renowned Specie, at Specie grove, claim, per- sonal property and all, for $2,000. There were some fifteen horses, six yoke of oxen, and fifty hogs, all run- ning at large on the prairie. He said to Clark and LeBarron : " This is your boundary through the grove, and southward you will always be open to the Illinois river." The old man's "pasture," to which he could so calmly give a verbal warranty deed, was eighteen miles long, and now supports four or five thousand peo- ple. About the same time,
D. J. TOWNSEND
claimed the Cowdry place, near Mr. Morgan's, and built a log cabin there, but Specie outwitted him by staking out for himself nearly all the claim, leaving only a narrow strip where the cabin stood. Mr. Towns- end told the neighbors, and nine of them turned out and hauled all of Specie's rails and logs up to Towns-
153
DEATH OF SPECIE.
end's cabin. Kane county had just been organized, including the eastern towns of Kendall, and Specie brought suit in that county against the nine separately for trespass. Each of them subponed the others, so that each had nine suits on hand. But the trespass was proven on Specie, and he had to go up to the county seat with the shot bag full of silver paid him by Clark and Le Barron, and settle costs to the amount of $400. Soon after he went down on the Vermillion, where he died. He was found dead in his cabin. Thus passed another of the advance guards of civilization. He was half Indian in his habits, and would as soon eat musk- rat as pig, but the early settlers were indebted to him for many acts of kindness, which, sometimes, it must be confessed, were poorly requited. He and Stephen Sweet parted soon after the Indian war, and Sweet worked around Yorkville for a time and then removed to McLean county, and married.
11
CHAPTER XXIII.
TREATIES AND WOLF HUNTS.
..........
VER the river, in the town of Bristol, were Deacon David Johnson, George Johnson, Horatio Johnson, J. W. Gil- lam, Truman B. Hathway, Lyman Lane, John Burton, Nathaniel Burton, John Pearson, Galusha Stebbins, Wil- liam Curran, John Windett, James Teaby, William Bull and Lyman S. Knox. Nearly all are dead. Mr. Knox still lives on his original claim at Bristol Station. He was from Monroe county, New York, and was the first actual settler on Blackberry creek. Mr. Dodge was a
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