USA > Illinois > Winnebago County > Rockford > History of Rockford and Winnebago County, Illinois, from the first settlement in 1834 to the civil war > Part 11
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the public the following year. It stood sixty feet front on State street, with large additions in the rear, with basement kitchen, dining-room, and sleeping apartments above the dining-room. The street in front was graded down, and ten or twelve steps were built. This elevation above the street-level proved quite a serious objection, and the house was abandoned, and it stood vacant for some years. The ground was then excavated, the house turned to the street, and lowered to the grade. The name of this hotel was changed to the Rock River House. A part of the building stands on 307 East State street, and is occupied as a fruit store. Another part is the saloon building on the southeast corner of State and Madison streets. The successive proprietors of the house were: Jacob Miller, David Paul, Mc- Kenney & Tyler, E. S. Blackstone, W. Fulton, H. D. Searles, L. Caldwell.
The Log Tavern, known as the Stage House, was opened in 1838. It was built on the old Second National Bank corner. Brown's Cottage was opened in 1850, by Andrew Brown. The name was changed to the American House in 1852 by G. S. Moore. The Waverly and the Union House, near the North- western depot, on the West side, were opened in 1852. The Inn, which was located where the Chick House now stands, was opened in 1840 by Spencer & Fuller. The Eagle Hotel was opened in 1841. It was located on South Main street, in the third block below State.
In 1837-38 several towns were projected in Winnebago county. One was on the east side of the river, on what was called Big Bottom, nearly opposite the stone quarry. A man named Wattles staked out his farm into lots and streets, and called it Scipio; but even its classic name did not give it pres- tige. The proprietor built the only house ever completed. The stakes remained for several years, until they were plowed under by the owner, who could not give away his lots.
Another town was started by the river, at what is known as the old Shumway place. At one time there were from thirty- five to forty frames erected there; but only a few of them were ever enclosed. This fact gave the place the appropriate name of "Rib-town." Later many of these frames were torn down and removed. Several were taken to new farms, and others were brought to Rockford. It is certain that two or three "Rib-town" frames were re-erected in the city. One was owned
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HON. EPHRAIM SUMNER.
by Jonathan Hitchcock, and located on North Second street ; and another by a Mr. Ricard, on the same street. One frame was placed beside the Shumway house, as a part of it. Mark Beaubien finished one two-story house, and occupied it with his family for two or three years, when they removed to Chicago.
In 1839-40 George W. Lee platted a town on the west or upper side of Kishwaukee river, at its junction with Rock river, in what is now New Milford township. Quite a town was act- ually built, with two stores and a blacksmith shop. A large building for a seminary was enclosed and partially finished, but it was never used for this purpose. Although an excellent building, and standing in a sightly place, it was allowed to remain until all the windows were broken out. The frame was finally torn down and the lumber hauled away. This first attempt to found a seminary in Winnebago county will be considered in the next chapter. Both "Rib-town" and Mr. Lee's plat were named Kishwaukee; but the former was abandoned before George W. Lee platted the second. The latter was some- times called Leetown, in honor of its founder.
Colonel James Sayre, a settler of 1835, projected the village of Newburg. He built a sawmill and afterward put up a grist- mill in the same building, which began to grind early in the winter of 1837-38. Colonel Sayre carried on the business for several years. It was the first gristmill built in the northern counties, and was of great value to the settlers. Mr. Thurston says he went there with a bushel of wheat on his pony the third day after the machinery started. There was no bolting appa- ratus, and the meal was sifted by hand. The machinery was crude, and the mill was abandoned. Newburg is today only a cross-roads, with nothing to remind the visitor of the time when it was considered a rival of Belvidere and Rockford.
Perhaps few persons now living have ever heard of the Vanceborough postoffice. Vanceborough was another name for Twelve-Mile Grove, on the State road, about halfway from Rockford to Freeport. Ephraim Sumner settled near there in 1835. Mr. Sumner was born in Winhall, Vermont, February 9, 1808. In 1810 his parents removed to Darien, New York, where they remained until 1821, when they settled in Massachusetts. Mr. Sumner engaged in milling and farming near Twelve-Mile Grove, and became an extensive land-owner. He represented this district in the twenty-sixth general assembly, and held several minor civil offices. Mr. Sumner married a sister of
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HISTORY OF ROCKFORD AND WINNEBAGO COUNTY.
Thatcher Blake. Their children are Hon. E. B. Sumner and Mrs. Annie S. Lane. Mr. Sumner was one of the very few early settlers who accumulated a large fortune. His last years were spent in Rockford. Mr. Sumner died October 18, 1887. February 11, 1845, Mr. Sumner was commissioned postmaster at Vance- borough. He was to retain the office during the pleasure of the postmaster-general. The commission is signed by C. Wickliffe, who was postmaster-general during the administration of John Tyler. The seal is the figure of a man on horseback, with a small mail-bag upon his back. Both man and horse are apparently in great haste to reach the next station. This commission, now in possession of Hon. E. B. Sumner, is well preserved, although it was issued fifty-five years ago. The elder Sumner built a stone house at Vanceborough, which is still in a good state of preservation, and has well nigh outlived the memory of the town. These primitive villages along the old stage lines were superseded by the railway station, and they now scarcely live in memory.
CHAPTER XXI.
DR. A. M. CATLIN .- THE FOOTE BROTHERS .- FIRST SEMINARY IDEA.
R. A. M. CATLIN emigrated to Illinois from the Western Reserve, in Ohio, in February, 1838, in company with the Rev. Hiram Foote and Silas Tyler. This party traveled the entire distance in wagons. They were of New England stock, and were part of a movement to found an institution of learn- ing similar to the one then flourishing at Oberlin, Ohio.
The brothers, Hiram, Lucius and Horatio Foote, all clergy- men, were prominent in this movement. They were more or less influenced by the example of the Rev. Charles G. Finney, the famous revivalist and founder of the Oberlin institution. Mr. Ira Baker, Rev. Lewis Sweasy, James S. Morton, a Mr. Field, and others moved from the Western Reserve to Rockford about the same time, and under the same influences. Upon their arrival in Rockford, the only hotel to be found was a double log cabin, and the only bed discovered by Doctor Catlin for himself and boy was a thinly covered, dislocated and dislo- cating stratum of oak shakes, supported at the sides by the naked logs-a Spartan bed for a cold night. Horace, a fourth brother of the Footes, had preceded the others by a year, and secured a log cabin on Rock river, about two miles above Rock- ford. Into this single room, with a small loft, were crowded three families, with several children.
Dr. Catlin moved to a log cabin on the bluff overlooking Big Bottom, four miles north of Rockford. A Hoosier by the name of Shores had worn a slight track between his home back on the hills and a plowed field on the Bottom, and this was the only road near the Doctor's new home. A small, inconstant, near-by stream, like the road, lost itself in the dry prairie.
At that time Dr. Catlin intended to abandon the practice of medicine. To feed his little family, he hired a broken prairie of Herman B. Potter, who lived two miles south of Rockford. This land, six miles from home, the Doctor cultivated under difficulties, for it soon became known to the scattered people that he was a physician, and, like Cincinnatus, he was called from the plow. He was not a man to deny the necessities of
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HISTORY OF ROCKFORD AND WINNEBAGO COUNTY.
others; and against his wishes at the time, he was drawn into the practice of his profession, which he continued until near the day of his death, nearly sixty years later. He liad practiced in early life in New York and Ohio, and his entire professional serv- ice lasted seventy years. He died in 1892, at the age of ninety-one.
On one occasion while at work on the Potter place, Dr. Catlin was summoned to visit a sick person on the Kishwaukee. He took his horse from the furrow near sunset, and, sending his boy of eight on foot six miles northward to the lonely cabin on the prairie, he himself rode southward to his patient. He soon learned that his profession was a jealous mistress, and abandoned farming.
The missionary educational managers had selected the mouth of the Kishwaukee as the site of their institution. A large building was begun, but never completed, and the useless frame survived for years as evidence of the untimeliness of their effort. An Indian wigwam still survived on the same site. The Indians, after their bloody victory over the indiscreet militia at Stillman's Run, had abandoned the region, and the military expedition, which included Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, had been withdrawn. Silver brooches, arrow heads and the like were found beside the deep, narrow Indian trails that wound about the bluffs and across the prairies. Kishwaukee, however, soon had about forty frame dwellings, and Dr. Catlin, Mr. Tyler, Mr. Field, Mr. Johnson and others resided there.
Lucius and Horace Foote had staid by the log house of the latter, and Dr. Catlin, whose wife and Mrs. Lucius Foote were sisters, was induced by this fact and other reasons, to build in this neighborhood, which he did. He hewed the logs and the floor puncheons, and split the roof sbakes with his own hands. His door and door-frames were made from purchased material, but lacked glazing or other filling for the skylight. As he sat one evening "under his own vine and fig tree," not yet planted, there passed a load of noisy revelers. As they drove furiously by, they shook out a wagon end-board that exactly filled the skylight aperture, and completed the house, which the builder probably enjoyed as much as any he ever occupied ; that is, in the recollection of it.
Although Rockford was from the first clearly indicated as the coming metropolis, by the ford which gave its name, yet Kishwaukee below and Winnebago above were "boomed." In those days they could compare population with Rockford.
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SIXTY PRESCRIPTIONS IN ONE DAY.
Dr. Catlin finally settled in Rockford about 1839, and entered upon a medical practice which, if not large, was very "wide," as it carried him from Roscoe and above on the north, to Still- man's Run on the south, and from Twelve-Mile Grove and beyond to Belvidere. Much of this was night riding. After the settlers' horses had done their day's work, and after the fall of darkness, in the silence of the night, when watchers became nervous, in the midst of storms and when the primitive house- hold lights burned pale, was the accepted time to send for the
medical comforter; and the nocturnal "Hollo, Doctor!" was often heard above the storm at the physician's door. He was never ill, and never refused to answer the call. Even when his own horse failed, he was mounted behind the messenger, and rode out in the night to relieve thesick. Once he was persuaded to mount the back of a sturdy messenger, who bore him and his precious medicine-bag through the swellings of icy Kishwaukee.
The year 1846 was signalized by much sickness. Nearly every family living on low land had malarial fever, and the doctors were busy people. At one time Dr. Catlin could get but four or five hours' sleep out of the twenty-four, and he would become so exhausted that he frequently slept while riding from house to house. One day's ride, for example, included a trip of several miles north of Rockford, and then a tour south beyond the Killbuek, and a return by Cherry Valley, closing the day's work in the following morning. Thirty calls were made, and sixty patients prescribed for on that occasion. During this season Dr. Goodhue was asked what could be done for the siek. To this grave question the Doctor made this characteristic reply : "I don't know unless we build a big smoke-house and cure them," referring to the almost universal pallor. Dr. Catlin was an indulgent creditor, and fully shared the burden and poverty of early days.
As a practitioner, Dr. Catlin was distinguished by a combi- nation of conservatism and independence of thought and method. It was said of him by one who knew him well, that "as a careful examiner, close reasoner, and with ability to define and state cause and effect, Dr. Catlin had few superiors." This fact, with his large experience and unobtrusive, non-self-assertive spirit, attracted the regard of his brother practitioners ; so that he was often consulted by them in difficult cases. Near the close of his life he was honored by them with a spontaneous tender of a reception and banquet, an honor which he highly appreciated.
CHAPTER XXII.
DR. JOSIAH C. GOODHUE .- DR. ALDEN THOMAS.
THE year 1838 was signalized by the advent of several phy- sicians who became prominent in early local history. Among this number was Dr. Josiah C. Goodhue, who settled in the autumn, with his family. He had been here the preceding autumn on a tour of inspection. Dr. Goodhue had attained some distinction before he became a citizen of this county. He was born in 1803, at Putney, Vermont. His mother is said to have been a cousin of Aaron Burr. The Doctor was graduated from the school of medicine at Yale, and began practice at St. Thomas, Upper Canada, in 1824. While there he was married to Miss Catherine Dunn. A brother, Sir George Goodhue, was in the employ of the Canadian government. The Doctor emigrated from Canada to Chicago in 1835. He was the first resident phy- sician in that city outside the garrison of Fort Dearborn. When Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837, Dr. Goodhue was elected the first alderman from the First ward. There were six wards in the city at that time. William B. Ogden was chosen mayor in that year. Dr. Goodhue designed the first city seal of Chicago, and it became known as hislittle baby. He was quite proud of his offspring. The Doctor was the real founder of the first free school system of Chicago. He was one of a committee appointed to solicit subscriptions for the first railroad chartered to run from the city, the Galena & Chicago Union.
In his practice in Chicago, Dr. Goodhue was associated with Dr. Daniel Brainard. Their office was on Lake street, near the old Tremont House. John Wentworth and Ebenezer Peck were engaged in the practice of law in the same building. Dr. Good- hue was one of the men who drew the act of incorporation for Rush Medical college, and was a member of the first board of trustees.
Dr. Goodhue's first house in Rockford was what was then known as the "ball alley," on the northwest corner of Madison and Walnut streets, where the Golden Censer brick building was subsequently erected. He afterward purchased a home on the
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THEFT OF BIG THUNDER'S SKULL.
site of the watch factory ; and the house was moved away when the factory was built. The lot had at one time a pleasant grove, with no fence. Reference was made in a preceding chap- ter to the fact that Dr. Goodhue gave to the city of Rockford its name.
Dr. Goodhue had thirteen children, five of whom died under five years of age. Four sons and four daughters attained adult life. One son, George Washington Goodhue, died of yellow fever, in Mexico, during the war with that country. Another son, William Sewell, died from illness contracted during the civil war. He had read law with James L. Loop. Dr. Good- hue's oldest daughter, Mrs. C. F. Holland, widow of John A. Holland, and step-mother of H. P. Holland, now resides in Chicago. Mrs. Hoyt Barnum, another daughter, is a resident of Rockford.
Dr. Goodhue is said to have taken the skull from the body of Big Thunder, the Indian chief, whose resting-place was on the court house mound in Belvidere. Big Thunder was a noted character among the Pottawatomies. His name may have been suggested, according to Indian fashion, by his heavy, roll- ing voice. His burial-place was selected on the highest point of ground. No grave was dug. The chief was wrapped in his blankets, and seated on a rude bench, with his feet resting on an Indian rug. His face was turned toward the west, where he expected a great battle to be fought between his tribe and another. A palisade, made of split white ash logs, from which the bark had been peeled, was placed around his body, and covered with bark. The battle which Big Thunder looked for, never came; and his war-spirit never re-animated his mouldering clay and joined in the victorious whoops of his braves over their vanquished foes. The Indians, as they passed the coop of their fallen chief, would throw tobacco into his lap; and Simon P. Doty, an early settler, during a torturing tobacco famine, would systematically purloin the weed from Big Thunder. In those days Belvidere was on the stage route from Chicago to Galena; and Big Thunder became the prey of relic hunters. His skull found its way, by Dr. Goodhue, into Rush Medical college, and it was probably destroyed in the great fire of 1871.
Dr. Goodhue was an interesting and eccentric character. A story was current in the early days to the effect that a certain doctor had heard that Dr. Goodhue had said that he had killed Mr. Smith's child. The offended practitioner determined to call
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HISTORY OF ROCKFORD AND WINNEBAGO COUNTY.
upon Dr. Goodhue and make inquiry concerning the rumor. Dr. Goodhue saw him coming, surmised at once his errand, and met his offended friend at the door in his most cordial manner. "I am very glad to see you, sir; come in." This reception embarrassed the visitor, but he unburdened his mind in this wise: "Dr. Goodhue, I hear that you have said that I killed Smith's child." Dr. Goodhue interrupted him with this start- ling revelation : "Haven't you killed more than one? Lord, I've killed more than forty. If you haven't killed more than one, you are no doctor at all!" The Doctor gave the name of "Cedar Bend" to the seminary ground, that slopes toward the river, upon which there were many cedars.
Dr. Goodhue's death was the result of an accident, on the night of December 31, 1847. He was called to make a profes- sional visit to the family of Richard Stiles, four miles west on the State road. After caring for his patient, he accompanied Mrs. Stoughton, a neighbor, to her home. The night was dark, and he fell into a well, which was then being excavated, and had not been covered or enclosed. Mrs. Stoughton had asked him to wait until she returned with a light; but before she came back the Doctor had made the fatal fall. He survived only a short time after he was taken from the well. His death was deplored by the entire community. He was a positive character ; nature had liberally endowed him in qualities of mind and heart. Dr. Goodhue was an attendant at the Unitarian church. Mrs. Goodhue was an Episcopalian. She died October 14, 1873. A son of Dr. Goodhue died November 14, 1880.
Dr. Alden Thomas was born at Woodstock, Vermont, Nov- ember 11, 1797, and was a lineal descendant from John Alden. He was married to Elizabeth Marsh, June 15, 1824. In the autumn of 1839, the family came to Rockford. They had lived in the meantime at Bethany and Holly, New York. During the first few weeks in Rockford the family lived in the Brinckerhoff house, which still stands on the corner north of the government building. Later Dr. Thomas resided for a few months in a house which stood on the site of the Emerson warehouse, just south of the Chicago & Northwestern railroad bridge. In the following spring Dr. Thomas built a house opposite the court house. He practiced medicine about five or six years, and then removed to a farm two miles south on the Kishwaukee road, where he lived about two years. The family then returned
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AN EARLY DRUGGIST.
to the village, and lived for a time in a house still standing on South Second street, and later in the grout house near the corner west of the First Congregational church, which Dr. Thomas built. He opened a drug store soon after his return from the farm, and continued in this business until a short time before his death. Dr. Thomas was a member of the First Congregational church, and played the bass viol there for some time. A book of music, with words and notes copied by him in a clear, beautiful hand, is now in possession of his daughter, Mrs. W. A. Dickerman. Dr. and Mrs. Thomas are held in loving remembrance by the early residents of the city.
Dr. Thomas' children are: Mrs. W. A. Diekerman, E. P. Thomas, and the late Mrs. S. J. Caswell, of this city, and F. A. Thomas and Mrs. Evans Blake, of Chicago. Henry, the young- est son, enlisted in the army during the civil war, and was drowned while returning on a furlough. Dr. Thomas' death occurred March 21, 1856.
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CHAPTER XXIII.
DR. GEORGE HASKELL .- THE GIPSY : THE FIRST STEAMER.
0 N the morning of April 16, 1838, Dr. Haskell and family, Mowry Brown and wife, Samuel Haskell, H. H. Silsby, Isaiah Lyon, Caleb Blood and William Hull boarded thesteam- boat Gipsy at Alton, Illinois. The destination of this party was Rockford. The river was high, the bottom lands were overflowed, and the boat sometimes left the channel of the Mississippi and ran across points of land, and once went through a grove of timber. When the Gipsy arrived at Rock Island and ran alongside the wharf-boat, a strong wind from the east turned the bow out into the stream. As the boat turned, the rudder struck the wharf-boat, and broke the tiller ropes. This accident rendered the boat unmanageable, and it was blown across the river to Davenport, Iowa. While at Rock Island Dr. Haskell contracted with the captain that upon his return from Galena he would steam up Rock river to Rockford. At Savanna, Samuel Haskell, William Hull and H. H. Silsby left the Gipsy. They had come to the conclusion that the boat would never reach Rockford; and in company with Moses Wallen, of Winnebago village, where the county seat had been located by the special commissioners, they started afoot for Rockford. They stopped over night at Cherry Grove, and the next morning they traveled to Crane's Grove, on the stage route from Dixon to Galena. There they hired a coach and team, which brought them that evening to Loomis' Hotel.
Mr. Silsby writes that a few days after his arrival he arose one morning as soon as it was light, to see if he could discover any sign of the Gipsy. He was rewarded by the sight of dense, black smoke, near Corey's bluff, which seemed to be moving up the river. Soon the Gipsy came in sight, and the people gath- ered on the banks of the river and cheered the boat as it ascended in fine style until nearly over the rapids, when it suddenly turned, swung around, and went down stream much faster than it ascended. It rounded to and tried it again, and soon turned down stream a second time. After several attempts, with the aid of a quantity of lard thrown into the furnaces, the boat ran
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IMMORTALIZED BY WHITTIER.
up the swift current, and soon tied up to the bank in front of Platt & Sanford's store, which stood near the water's edge, in the rear of the Masonic Temple site. The Gipsy was the first steamer that visited Rockford. It was a stern-wheeler, not less than one hundred feet in length, and perhaps thirty in width. It had a cabin above the hold, and an upper deck, open and uncov- ered. There were several state-rooms. G. A. Sanford and John Platt had come to Rockford the preceding year, and had formed a partnership in conducting the first store on the West side. Mr. Sanford sold his interest to Dr. Haskell. The following year Mr. Platt retired and Dr. Haskell became sole owner. When the Gipsy arrived the Doctor's cleven tons of merchandise were removed from the boat to the store. A merchant at Beloit had shipped ten tons from Rock Island to Beloit, which were to be delivered at that point. The people came in from the country, and chartered the boat for an excursion up the river, and car- ried passengers. The captain said he never witnessed such a scene before. They danced all night, and kept the cabin in an uproar day and night until they reached Rockton. The music was furnished by Andrew Lovejoy, who played the flute, and another man with his fiddle.
Dr. Haskell was a native of Massachusetts. He was born at Harvard, March 23, 1799. His father, Samuel Haskell, removed to Waterford, Maine, in 1803. In 1821 the son went to Phillips Exeter academy, and entered Dartmouth college in 1823. He left his college class in his sophomore year, and studied medicine until 1827, when he received the degree of M. D. from the college. While in college, he taught one term of district school in East Haverhill. One of his pupils was John G. Whittier; and the schoolmaster in Whittier's "Snow-Bound" was his former teacher. On page thirty-four of Samuel T. Pick- ard's Life and Letters of Whittier, is found this allusion to the hero of this poem : "Until near the end of Mr. Whittier's life, he could not recall the name of this teacher whose portrait is so carefully sketched, but he was sure he came from Maine. At length, he remembered that the name was Haskell, and from this clue it has been ascertained that he was George Haskell, and that he came from Waterford, Maine." Dr. Haskell never appeared to have been aware of the fact that hisgifted Haverhill pupil had immortalized him in "Snow-Bound." Dr. Haskell also received this tribute as a teacher from his illustrious pupil, as given in a later chapter of Mr. Pickard's biography : "He
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