USA > Illinois > Lee County > History of Lee County, Illinois, Volume I > Part 34
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In the year 1844, by reason of the manner of terrorizing the people of Inlet by the banditti, most of the settlers moved over to Lee Center as stated already.
At that time a school for higher education was demanded, and once the agitation was begun, it was characteristic of the people to go ahead with it. The subject was not permitted to slumber for an instant, and nothing arrested the progress of the scheme until the Lee Center Union Academy, bell and all, became a reality.
With the year 1846, the project had assumed a definite shape. About that time Moses Crombie moved into Lee Center. He was a carpenter by trade, and he contracted to do all the carpenter work in and about the building.
According to the memory of Mr. Albert Z. Bodine, which is very accurate, Messrs. Burroughs and Bull of Dixon did the brick
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work and very soon a brick exterior academy was completed, the brick being made from clay found near by and burned near the building.
In the year 1853, a stone addition was made to it, during the administration of Simeon Wright, principal, a noted educator who begun his work in 1853. He came west from Battle Creek, Michigan.
The first principal of this famous old school was Hiram Mc- Chesney. Seven trustees and five special directors directed its affairs.
Lee Center immediately took on a great reputation. Students from all over the country came here to attend. Parents who came along to settle their children comfortably, were astonished to find such an institution nestling snugly among the pretty homes, most of them still standing, and to find such a cultured people.
Oh! Those were glorious days in old Lee Center. Lyceumis, lectures, traveling troupes giving entertainments in the chapel, entertained the residents and the students. The debates in those famous old days were fought out with all the industry of a con- temporaneous session of Congress. Societies then, as now in university towns, switched the students into little cliques. And what a melody of noise they made on every special function or society victory! The big university town today is not a whit different from old Lee Center in its palmy days. For fifteen lively and happy years at least, Lee Center occupied the most important place in Lee county history. College life entered into the routine of every Lee Center family. But with the coming of the railroads and their town-building influences all around, Lee Center declined in a worldly way, but unto this day, its people possessing great riches in moneys and in the better parts of human accomplish- ments, proud as Lucifer, stand as proud of the Lee Center of today as their ancestors were proud of old Lee Center. It is today a beautiful little place ; its old homes, beautifully kept, lend glamour and romance. But look at the Wellman, Shaw, Haskell and other homes, tidily kept, and the visitor will retire with sentiments I have endeavored to describe.
During last September, one of the most beautiful buildings of the county, erected through the generous bounty of Mrs. Abigail L. Haskell, widow of the George E. Haskell of 1840, was dedicated and Mrs. Haskell at ninety-three attended the ceremonies. Above, the Odd Fellows have their lodge rooms and banquet hall. In the basement the kitchens are located. The ground floor contains a commodious storeroom.
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The furniture of walnut is designed after the latest patterns. The decorations of blue and gold present the most substantial as well as the most gorgeous lodge rooms in Lee county.
Hand in hand with the college life of the old days, interest centered in church life in old Lee Center, and it is safe to say. in no other community did church life hold such general and generous sway as there.
Peter Cartwright preached the first sermon at Inlet at C. R. Dewey's house in the spring of 1836. During the same year, in the summer. the first Methodist class was organized with John Fosdiek leader. Mr. David Tripp who settled there in 1837, was the first Baptist to settle in Inlet, and a man named Heyler and another named Tourtillott settled there and preached occasionally in the Tripp house. This same Tripp was Lee county's first collector.
When Mr. Tripp built his new barn, a protracted meeting was held in it and a number of converts were secured. The first Baptist church was organized at about that same time and services were held in the Tripp house until the schoolhouse was erected near the Dewey mill on the bank of the creek in the northeast quarter of section 9, when church services were held in it. The circuit rider who held services there was a young married man named Smith. His circuit trips east and west from Inlet took generally two weeks and while at Inlet he stopped always at Mr. C. R. Dewey's. There one day he was taken ill and in a few days he died, and his was the first funeral at Inlet, in 1837. Luke Hitchcock filled the pulpit . at the time for the Methodists, and he preached the fimeral sermon for the unfortunate young Mr. Smith. That was the first funeral sermon preached in Lee Center.
Considering the privations and the meagre emolument for the preacher in those days, it is astonishing that so many of Inlet's first settlers were preachers. When Mr. Birdsall came there in 1837 and took up his quarters at Mr. Tripp's house, his two sons- in-law, Luke Hitchcock and Oscar F. Ayres, came with him, both Methodist preachers.
The circuit rider always made Inlet. It was customary in those days to receive notice that the preacher would arrive in a neighbor- hood about a certain time. His entertainment was provided for first and then the word was passed from settler to settler to be present. Invariably the preacher had a good congregation. Many times he slept on a clay floor of a log cabin. The winds may have whistled through between the unchinked logs and through the windows which at best were glazed with cotton cloth.
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Buttermilk may have constituted the drink and most of the victuals, in many instances, but with such men as Peter Cartwright victual and drink and sleeping apartment made little difference; they were one and the same. The old circuit riders were all alike in standing up under the most rigorous life.
Newspapers were generally a month old by the time they reached Inlet; books were scarce and the Bible generally consti- tuted the most valned member of every library.
Three pretty churches have been built in Lee Center, the suc- cessor of Inlet, the Methodist, the Congregational and the Episco- pal. For a time, in the morning, the Congregationalists held services and a Sunday school : in the afternoon, the Episcopalians held their services and in the evening the Methodists. In the Con- gregational church, Deacons Crombie and Barnes took up the col- lection ; at the Episcopal services, Dr. Charles Gardner and Garrett La Forge. At each service, nearly the same congregation attended, thus giving to Lee Center a religious influence and character which is present today. So much for a proper influence in the beginning of things in a community.
The Congregational society was organized at the home of Moses Crombie and was called the "Congregational Church of Palestine Grove." Afterwards and until 1849, services were conducted in the Wasson schoolhouse, after which date they were removed to Lee Center.
For some time before the Lee Center churches were built. church services were held in the academy, the people coming over from Palestine Grove to join. Here are some of the names of a congregation preserved to us from the correspondence of one of the worshippers, Mrs. James Crombie: Mr. and Mrs. James Farwell, Mr. and Mrs. John C. Church, Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus Davis, Miss Mary Barnes, Charles Hitchcock, Dr. and Mrs. R. F. Adams. Dr. and Mrs. Ingalls, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Clapp, Deacon Barnes and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Moses Crombie, Lyman Wheat, Josephine and George, Mr. and Mrs. Swartwout, Abram and Nelson, Mr. and Mrs. Bradford Church, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Frisbee, Martin Wright and Helen, Rev. James Brewer, principal of the Academy, Miss ITarriet Rewey, the primary teacher, David Smith and two daughters, Mrs. Bourne and Mrs. Sancer, Mrs. Lee Clapp and Alice, Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Bodine, Albert Z. Bodine, Tra Brower, Unele Elisha Pratt and Sarah, "Squire Haskell, John Warnick, Sabra, and Mrs. John Crombie. The pastor was Rev. S. W. Phelps, and it was his first pastorate. Mr. Brewer pitched the tunes: John
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Wetherbee, the Misses Barnes, Mrs. Henry Frisbee and Mrs. Martin Wright composed the choir. Among the many old Lee Center folks who spread sunshine over the community were Uncle Russel Linn, Uncle Dan Frost with their life companions, Aunt Abbie and Aunt Eulalia, Mrs. Birdsall, her daughter, Mrs. Luke Hitchcock, Mrs. Warnick, Mrs. John H. Gardner and so many quiet, beautiful, heroic women, yet so deferentially unobtrusive that their names with their beautiful lives slipped away so tenderly that time has permitted them to remain undisturbed even by the ruth- less historian who grubs and digs into graves and garrets indis- criminately.
But old Lee Center had its troubles as well as its joys. It seemed as if Inlet was annoyed more than any other community by the terror of the prairies, the banditti of the prairie. Claim jumpers too made life miserable for some of the pioneer settlers until in common with every other community, its honest members were compelled to bind themselves together by not only moral and physical ties, but by written indentures. Here is a copy of the Inlet document :
"Inlet, Ogle Co., Ill., July 10, 1837.
"The encouragement which Congress gave to the pioneers of this country stimulated the present inhabitants to sacrifice prop- erty and ease and commence a long and fatiguing journey in order to better themselves and their offspring ; not only the fatigue of a Jong and expensive journey, but the privations to which they were exposed in consequence of the scarcity of the comforts of life and the exposure to the inclemency of the weather in an open log cabin. Everything considered. we think it no more than right. just and honorable that each man should hold a reasonable claim, and at the land sales obtain his lands at Congress price.
"Therefore, We, the subscribers, feel willing to come under any rules and regulations that are warranted by honor and principle in regard to our honest claims.
"Therefore, We establish a few rules and regulations whereby we may be governed by principles of equity."
Seven articles follow and the signatures.
These rules were adopted July 10, 1837, after having been drafted by the committee composed of George E. Haskell, Benja- min Whitaker, Joseph Sawyer, Lewis Clapp and Martin Wright.
At the public sales of land, the Government required the cash, $1.25 per acre. One class of sharpers had invented the scheme of pretending to bid when the land was offered. so that he might be
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bought off; but this was soon spoiled by one settler for each neigh- borhood standing near by, and where a piece of land, "claimed" by an actual settler, was offered to ery out, "settler!" With the sen- timent of the home-seekers around him running strongly against the speculator, but one or two instances were enough to stop that means of trying to extort from poor settlers slight bonuses to pre- vent bidding. Physical force was used to stop it and when resorted to the officers of the law were conveniently absent.
When Mr. Haskell came to Inlet, he bought the "gront" build- ing belonging to Mr. David Tripp and moving it nearer to the east bank of Inlet creek, he opened the first store at Inlet. As Mr. Haskell was the first postmaster of Inlet, that building was used as the postoffice. Subsequently it was moved to Lee Center. At first Mr. Haskell lived in a log cabin; subsequently he erected a frame building. He, with Lewis Clapp was known always to have ready money at hand and so when it was "tipped off" to Fox of the banditti that Mr. Haskell had the money secreted in a trunk under his bed Fox planned to get it.
These desperadoes terrorized the whole country until 1841, when the enraged community covering territory from Rockford to Inlet and Dixon, led out the Driscolls over in Ogle county and shot them to death. Civilization triumphed by the same means employed by the bandits. Courts and penitentiaries had no terrors for the bandits. Their friends and sympathizers were so numer- ous and so strongly were they intrenched that a jury could not be found in some counties to render a conviction. In one instance a jail was burned in order to facilitate the escape of a member of the gang.
Inlet was about twelve miles from Dixon. It was one of the important points in the state for years and the Inlet ladies went to Dixon to shop when one or more item of finery was demanded. But with the birth of Lee Center, that pretentious place had fineries of its own to sell, even to a millinery store. Miss Mary Barnes who had learned something of the milliner's art in LaSalle. did bonnet trimming.
When the Illinois Central railroad wanted to enter Lee Center. that prosperous little place may have been somewhat proud and unyielding in her notions of prosperity and the possibility of its disappearance was considered preposterous. Railroads were new and untried and might not be worth to a community half so much as an academy. Perhaps that inasmuch as the stage coach had been good enough to serve them in the past. the new rail invention
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might not be able to supplant it. At all events the railroad took all the business to Amboy and in the face of the life which at once appeared in Amboy, Lee Center could not stand. For nearly fifty years Lee Center, so far as business was concerned, lay dormant.
At various times efforts to interest another railroad have failed. Under the direction of Mr. George H. T. Shaw, an electric line was partially graded between Dixon and Lee Center; but by a cruel stroke of fate, a death and the consequent failure to respond in money to the needs of the road, ent its career short and the grade and the project were abandoned.
Undaunted by failures however, Elijah L. King, Andrew Asch- enbrenner, Reinhart Aschenbrenner and Sherman Shaw, provided funds and built an electric road between Amboy and Lee Center and equipped it with stock to carry passengers, coal, grain and live stock. More than this, these gentlemen extended the road north- ward and eastward until it rums now almost to Ashton and with the possibility of its going forward to Rochelle in the near future, the success of the road seems to be assured.
Under present management, the farmers along the line can have a sidetrack run into their yards, if they choose and there load grain and stock and unload coal. It has proved one of the greatest bless- ings to the people of Lee Center and Bradford that could possibly come to them.
The progressiveness of the Lee Center people has been evi- denced year after year by the splendid hard roads which have been built in the township and today Lee Center has the best system of hard roads of any township in Lee county.
The same power which furnishes electricity for the road, fur- nishes light for the village and for the farmers along the line.
Lee Center is a beautiful place: its homes are suggestive of comfort and contentment. The township is inhabited by the same class of sturdy people which settled there in the early days. It is doubtful if there is a richer farm community than Lee Center. Its people always have enjoyed the distinction of being what we term rich in property. At the time of his death, Lewis Clapp was the richest man in the county. This township has furnished Lee county with many of its most important officers beginning with George E. Haskell, who was elected clerk of the eirenit court and recorder. Charles F. Lynn was made sheriff.
Lands in Lee Center now range in price from one Indred and eighty-five dollars to two hundred and fifty dollars per acre. Some of the large land holders are Sherman Shaw, a son of one of Lee
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Center's oldest and best pioneers, James M. Shaw, who in turn was born at Inlet in 1838.
Instead of the log cabin, unchineked and floorless, doorless and windowless, there are everywhere beautiful homes, heated by steam and hot water and hot air. Sanitary plumbing is installed. With the prevalence of electric poles over the county, which may be tapped at any place, those houses are lighted with electricity.
It may be true that in the south end of the township the land is more or less sandy, but the quantity and extent may be said to be so small as to fail to affect the average values in the township.
The early markets for Lee Center were the same for other towns, Chicago and the towns along the canal. Ox teams prevailed, though of course teams were used by some for freight transporta- tion. A week was consined to make the trip from Lee Center to Chicago and return, with a horse team ; with an ox team, two days longer were required.
Farmers hanling their grain from Lee Center and vicinity, planned to reach the Desplaines river by evening of the third day. The next day they drove to Chicago, sold their grain and got back to the Desplaines river that evening, thus spending two consecu- tive evenings or nights at that point. The old hotel stands today telling its story in memories which every old settler carried to his grave. It is a long low building near the west bank of the Des- plaines and on the north side of the tracks of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Company. It is seen easily just west of River Forest.
When the wagon got stuck in a slough, it was customary to unload the cargo, carry it to high ground, pull out the wagon, reload, and without drying one's clothing soaked with water, to pursue the journey imcomplainingly.
Pern was nearer and after a while became popular because less time was consnmed.
Of course there was more opportunity for company along the Chicago Stage road which runs today diagonally across the county from northwest to the southeast almost as it did then, than was to be found along the Pern road, and that circumstance had its influ- ences. Beginning with Jan. 1, 1834, the stage ran along the stage road through Inlet and at intervals carried the mail from Galena to Chicago and back.
Frequent efforts were made to rob the stage coaches by the ban- ditti, and to rob passengers and the messengers who transported
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the land office moneys, but no effort was fruitful of any degree of success, that I am aware of.
When Col. John Dement was receiver of the United States land office, many plots were laid to rob his messengers, but none suc- ceeded. Beginning with the year 1840, when he came to Dixon with the land office from Galena, it ever was his habit to study means to thwart the plans of the banditti, and they expressed marvel at the vigilance which could defeat them. In those days the Goverment money was sent by Colonel Dement to Peru, from which point it was sent by boat to St. Louis.
How vast was Inlet once ! Three sides of the county were its bor- ders. Now Inlet is a tradition. Lee Center absorbed it through its civilizing agencies. Then as though to avenge the grievances of poor Inlet, the railroad appeared to the westward and all the glory of Lee Center trembled.
But though its power might dissolve and though its people may have been attracted to Amboy and its railroad, Lee Center had been built upon foundations too massive to permit its sturdy super- structure to topple. Today there remain of the old families, worthy sons and daughters who cannot be drawn away: Mrs. Mary Rebecca Linn-Shaw, widow of James M. Shaw, born in the town- ship, a daughter of George Russel Linn; Sherman L. Shaw, her son ; Oscar Dewey, son of Corydon R. Dewey, born at Inlet in 1840; George W. Brewer and Mrs. Brewer, daughter of a Tripp; James E. Gray ; W. S. Frost, one of the original stock, and his son. W. S .; Mrs. Will Gray, daughter of Tripp, the tavern keeper cast of Inlet; Ernest Leavens and Mrs. Isaac Wood, descendants of the De Wolfs. They remain. Everywhere the influence of old Lee Center remains. The pretty little stone office of Doctors Adams and Ingalls stands today and is used as a residence. On the site of the old academy there has arisen a fine brick school building of three rooms, the primary, the intermediate and the high school of thirty-six, twenty and fourteen pupils respectively. Presiding over these grades are the Misses Grace Starks, Emily Williams and Alfreda Steineiker. Two hundred and fifty comprise the popu- lation. The Methodist Church is vacant and the Episcopal Church has been converted into a Modern Woodmen hall, but the Congregational Church is presided over by Rev. Frederick Kempster.
Swan A. Sandberg's blacksmithing and general repair shop is a large one and his business includes automobile repairing. Taylor
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& Co. sell groceries; J. J. Eisenberg sells groceries and George Brasel keeps a general store.
The King Grain Company handles grain, lumber, coal, cement, sand, gravel and tiles. A. G. Carlson and J. B. Flatt buy eggs and poultry.
Mr. L. E. Lippincott's orchestra of sixty pieces is an institution. The same gentleman also has a photograph studio and job printing establishment.
The telephone exchange is operated by Mrs. Lucy Utley. Frank Starks, the contractor, is kept busy all the time. Then too the powerhouse, which furnishes light for the village and power for the railroad, deserves more than passing mention. The Illinois North- ern Utilities Company have contracted to install very soon a power- ful generator which will revolutionize the service offered Lee Center and Bradford.
The Modern Woodmen of America have a membership of 140. A. F. Jeanblanc is V. C .; L. E. Lippincott is W. A .; Charles N. Frost, clerk: Philo L. Berry, banker, and Reinhart Aschenbren- ner, F. W. Harck, Jr., and G. W. Fuller are trustees.
There are eighty-four members of Abigail Lodge of Rebekahs. Mrs. Genevieve Frost is N. G. ; Laura A. Bronson, V. G .; Ada Hen- schel, recording secretary; Addie Pomeroy, financial secretary ; Ada Miller, treasurer, and Eva Miller, chaplain.
There are sixty members of Lee Center Lodge 146, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, established in 1856. Frank Kesselring is W. M .; Fred Gross.is S. W. ; Warren Leake, J. W .; Reinhart Hilli- son, S. D. : F. S. Berry, J. D .; A. Aschenbrenner, secretary ; John C. Smith, treasurer, and J. B. Flatt, tyler.
Haskell Lodge 1004, Independent Order Odd Fellows, has eighty-six members. G. Hasselberg is N. G .; H. Brunson, V. G .; G. L. Richardson, recording secretary; A. J. Carlson, financial secretary ; G. P. Miller, treasurer, and George Perry, chaplain; F. Kempster is district deputy.
HASKELL LODGE I. O. O. F. 1004. LEE CENTER Dedication Sept. 10, 1913
CHAPTER XXVII
MARION TOWNSHIP
Although under the title of Marion township, this wealthy township can date back to 1854 only. Nevertheless Marion's his- tory began with the day when O. W. Kellogg drove across Lee county in the year 1825 to make his trail to the lead mines. The trail ran through this township and the stages on its successor, the Pern and Peoria road, ran through this town until the Illinois Central railroad ended forever the usefulness of the stage coach in Lee county. The Cleaveland toll gate was located on that road in this township and the early scenes thrillingly and truthfully related elsewhere were enacted in this and East Grove townships. But because Chicago grew so rapidly and ontbid Pern and Peoria and even St. Louis for business, population along this trail did not settle so thickly as along the trail called the Chicago road, and therefore it is we have heard so little about Marion in the books. The first permanent settler whose name I am able to secure was David Welty, who started for the West in the year 1838, from Buf- falo, New York, accompanied by Aaron L. Porter, subsequently sheriff of this county, and other friends. They rode horses all the way. He came west to benefit his health. All who came with him were robust men and yet he outlived them all.
He reached Dixon's Ferry and tarried until his wife and oldest son. John, could join him, which they did the following year. Mr. and Mrs. Scott, mother and father of Mrs. Welty, came with them.
In the year 1840 Mr. Welty and the family moved to the land. on section 34, he had preempted on Inlet (Green) river, after building a double log house. the doors, sash and flooring for which were hauled from Chicago. The floors were covered with brussels carpet, the first to come to Lee county and for a considerable time were a rare enriosity. The furniture was all mahogany and Vol. I-25
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black walnut and contrasted strongly against the rough exterior of the unhewn logs. But those rugs, those carpets and that ele- gant furniture made the most luxurious home in Lee county, and after Mrs. Welty had her crying spell out for lonesomeness, she enjoyed the West so thoroughly that she never cared to return eastward.
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