USA > Illinois > Stark County > History of Stark County, Illinois, and its people : a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 9
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30
When Illinois was first admitted into the Union as a state, no provision was made in its constitution for the introduction of a town- ship organization. This idea may have been inherited from its old county organization, first established in 1778, while the territory eom- prising the state was elaimed by Virginia. The nearest approach to the civil township was the "justice's distriet." Seetion 8 of the act of March 2, 1839, organizing the County of Stark, provides that the county commissioners, as soon as elected, or within ten days, "shall proceed to lay off said eounty into justiees' distriets," ete.
Pursuant to this provision, on Thursday, April 4, 1839, the county
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commissioners-Calvin Winslow, Jonathan Hodgson and Stephen Trickle-established the following justices' districts:
1. Township 14, Ranges 6 and 7. (This district inchided the present townships of Elmira and Osceola.)
2. "To commence at the northeast corner of Township 13, Range 7; thenee west to the northwest corner of Section 3, Township 13, Range 6: thence sonth to the southwest corner of Section 34; thence east to the southwest corner of Section 35; thence south to the south- west corner of Section 35, Township 12, Range 6; thenee east to the southeast corner of Township 12, Range 7, and thence north to the place of beginning." (As thus established No. 2 contained the present townships of Penn and Valley and practically the east half of Toulon and Essex.)
3. "Beginning at the southwest corner of Township 12, Range 5; thenee east to the southwest corner of Seetion 35, Township 12, Range 6: thence north to the southwest corner of Section 11; thence west to the southwest corner of Section 7, Township 12, Range 5; thenee south to the place of beginning." (This distriet inchided a strip four miles wide and ten miles long in the southwest corner of the county.)
4. "Beginning at the northwest corner of Township 13. Range 5; thenee south to the southwest corner of Section 7. Township 12. Range 5: thence east to the southeast corner of Section 10; thence north to the northeast of Seetion 3, Township 13, Range 5: thence west to the place of beginning." ( No. 4 contained thirty-two square miles, including the western two-thirds of Goshen Township and eight sections in the northwest part of West Jersey.)
5. "Beginning at the northeast corner of Section 4. Township 13. Range 6: thence west to the northwest corner of Seetion 2, Town- ship 13. Range 5; thenee south to the southwest corner of Section 11, Township 12, Range 5: thence east to the southeast corner of Seetion 3; thenee west to the northwest corner of Section 3; thence north to the place of beginning." (This district included all that part of the county not contained in the other distriets, to-wit: The west half of the present Township of Toulon; eight sections in the northwest corner of Essex Township, a strip two miles wide off the east side of Goshen Township, and four seetions in the northeast corner of West Jersey Township.)
Assessors were appointed for the several distriets as follows: No. 1. Isaac Speneer: No. 2, John W. Agard: No. 3. J. H. Barnett; No. 4. Silas Richards: No. 5, Adam Perry. Vol. 1- 6
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On March 3, 1840, the board of county commissioners ordered that each of the justices' districts be made an election precinct and names were adopted instead of numbers. District No. I became Osceola precinct; No. 2. Wyoming: No. 3, Massillon; No. 4, Lafayette, and No. 5, Central.
Section 6. Article 7, of the Constitution of 1848 reads as follows: "The legislature shall provide by law that the legal voters of any county in the state may adopt a township form of government within the county, by a majority of the votes cast at any general election within such county."
In accordance with this constitutional provision, the General Assembly passed an act on February 12. 1849, authorizing the various counties of the state to vote on the question of adopting a township organization. In Stark County the question was voted upon at the general election held on Tuesday, November 2, 1852. The total number of votes cast at that election was 774, of which 443 were in favor of the adoption of a township form of government and 173 were opposed, 158 voters not expressing themselves upon the question. The records of the commissioners' court for Monday, December 6, 1852, contains the following entry :
"And it appearing to the court that a majority of all the votes cast at said election were in favor of township organization. it is therefore ordered by the court that Theodore F. Hurd. Henry Breese and Calvin L. Eastman be, and they are hereby appointed, commis- sioners to divide the county into towns or townships as required by law."
Commissions were issued to these three men December 13, 1852. They met at the courthouse in Toulon on Monday, January 3. 1853, and divided the county into eight townships. On March 7, 1853. they filed their report with the commissioners and it was made a matter of record. The townships as then established have never been changed, to-wit: Elmira Township includes Township 14. Range 6; Essex, Township 12. Range 6: Goshen, Township 13, Range 5: Osceola. Township 14. Range 7: Penn. Township 13. Range 7; Toulon. Township 13, Range 6: Valley, Township 12, Range 7 : West Jersey. Township 12. Range 5.
ELMIRA TOWNSHIP
This township is one of the northern tier. It embraces Congres- sional Township 14, Range 6, and therefore has an area of thirty-six
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square miles. On the north it is bounded by Bureau County; on the cast by Osceola Township; on the south by Toulon Township, and on the west by the County of Henry. The surface is generally level or gently undulating and is well watered. The west fork of the Spoon River flows diagonally across the township from northwest to southeast: Jaek Creek touches the southwest eorner, and there are a few minor streams. The soil is fertile and some of the finest farms in the county are in this township. Originally there was some native timber along the water courses and artificial groves have been planted around some of the houses upon the prairie. The township has some valuable coal deposits, but they have never been fully developed.
In a preceding chapter mention was made of the land warrants filed on Stark County lands by veterans of the War of 1812. During the years 1817-18 more than three score military claims were filed upon lands in what is now Elmira Township. Godfrey Reemer located a claim in Section 1: James Thomas, Robert Hall, A. F. Spencer and William Shepherd, Section 3; Reuben Close, Section 4; John Hughes and Charles Armstrong, Section 5: William Walsh, Section 6: John Fleming, Section 7; David Armstead and A. (). Smith, Section 8; John Martin and Henry Atkins, Seetion 9; James Patterson, Richard Gates, Charles Smith and Frederick Jenkins, Section 11: Richard Howard, Henry Shannon. Moses Sears and Ephraim Small, Section 13; Michael Conway, Aaron Burbank and two men named Roberts and Stenhert, Section 17: Daniel Gaskel, Section 19; Isaac Smith, Section 20; William Thompson. John Barnett, Section 21; Elias Hughes, Section 22; Malbry Pahner and John Potter, Seetion 23; John Jones. Seetion 24; Benjamin Barrett, Thomas McFadden and John Wood, Section 26: James D. Wells. John Crowell and Henry Davenport, Section 27; Bela Dexter, Sec- tion 28; Francis Lincoln, James Tiner and Bird Lavender, Section 29: Bradford Willis and Stephen Benjamin, Section 30; Charles Board and Henry Cruser, Section 31; John Timberlake and W. S. Tompkins, Section 32: Timothy Weston, Lewis Bronson and John Whitlock, Section 33: Robert Goodwin and Lewis Green, Section 34; Richard Seott, John Davis, John Giers and Seward Walters, Seetion 35: James Joyce. Conrad Sarr, William Sears and H. Edwards, Scetion 36.
The first settlement in the township was not made, however, until in December, 1835. Maj. Robert Moore, who condneted a ferry across the Illinois River at Peoria, had obtained a map showing which lands had been patented under the military bounty aet and which were
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subject to entry. His object was to encourage immigration to that part of the county, with a view to building up a town, of which he was to be the proprietor. In December, 1835. he led thither a party of prospective settlers, among whom were James Buswell. Isaae Spencer, Thomas Watts, Giles A. Dana and the Pratts, all from Vermont. They selected lands and began the work of establishing their homes upon the frontier. The following June eame William Hall and his wife, Robert and Mary Hall, Archibald and Charles Vandyke, Myrtle G. Brace, E. S. Brodhead and several members of a family named Davis. The first of the Sturms family had located at Seeley's Point as early as 1834. Other members of the family came later and located claims along the south side of Osceola Grove, in what is now Elmira Township. Mrs. Shallenberger describes the Sturms as "regu- lar frontiersmen, every one 'mighty hunters:' of tall stature, combin- ing strength and activity in an unusual degree. Wearing an Indian garb of fringed buekskins, their feet eneased in moccasins, with bowie knife in the belt and rifle on the shoulder; no wonder many a new- comer started from them in affright, supposing they had encountered genuine 'sealpers.' But these men were by no means as savage as they seemed, but had hearts to which friend or stranger never appealed in vain."
On June 17, 1837, the Turnbull and Oliver families left their "Bonnie Scotland" to seek homes in America. After a voyage of six weeks they reached Quebee, and nearly six weeks more were con- sumed in the journey to Chicago. From there they went to Joliet, where they found two vacant eabins, which they were permitted to occupy. the settlers there showing them every kindness. But they were anxious to enter lands of their own. At Joliet they met a man named Parker, who owned a quarter seetion of land in what is now Stark County, and Jolm Turnbull set out on foot to meet Parker at Wyoming, his intention being to purchase the land. He did not buy Parker's land, however, but, after looking around through the new settlement. purchased forty acres from John and Thomas Lyle, in Osceola Grove, upon which there was a small eabin, with the under- standing that if Mr. Oliver eame on the Lyles would sell him the adjoining forty acres. On February 14, 1838, John Turnbull and Andrew Oliver, with their families, took possession of their new pur- chases. That was the beginning of the "Seoteh Colony" in Elmira. Says Mrs. Shallenberger: "The four families, consisting of eight Lyles and thirteen of the Turnbulls and Olivers, contrived to live until spring opened, in one room, and that one 16 by 18 feet. That they
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succeeded in doing this harmoniously, so that the survivors can now look back through the mists of nearly forty years, and make merry over the experiences of that first winter in Osceola, is creditable to all concerned."
Letters from the Turnbulls and Olivers to friends and relatives in Scotland soon brought others from that country, and the Murrays, the Grieves, the Armstrongs, the MeDonalds, MeRaes, Murchisons, Finlaysons and MeLennans joined the Scottish settlement in Stark County. They patiently endured the hardships and inconveniences of frontier civilization, and with that industry and determination that have always been such dominant characteristics of the Scotch people they built up a neighborhood that is remarkable for its thrift and independence.
In 1837 a postoffice was established where the village of Osceola is now situated. It was named "Elmira" by Oliver Whitaker, after his old home in New York, and when township organization went into effect in 1853 the name was conferred on the township.
The population of the township in 1910, according to the United States census, was 884, and in 1914 the property was appraised at $758,198 for taxation-a valuation of over eight hundred dollars for each man, woman and child residing in the township. Elmira has seven schoolhouses, valued at $10,600, and employs nine teachers in the public schools.
ESSEX TOWNSHIP
Essex is the middle township of the southern tier and ineludes Congressional Township 12, Range 6. It is bounded on the north by Toulon Township; on the east by Valley: on the south by Peoria County, and on the west by the Township of West Jersey. The Spoon River enters from the north about two miles west of the north- east corner and flows in a southerly direction across the township, and the western part is watered by Indian Creek, which forms a junction with Spoon River in Section 33. In the southeastern part Camping Run and Mud Run flow westwardly through a small section of Essex, their waters finally mingling with those of the Spoon River. Along the streams the surface is slightly broken, but by far the greater part of the township consists of a gently undulating surface, with a fertile soil, and there is very little waste land.
This township was named for Isaac Essex, the first white settler in what is now Stark County. Prior to the inauguration of the town- ship system in 1853, this portion of the county was known as Massillon
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Preeinet. Between the years 1817 and 1820 land entries were made in this township under the old Military Bounty Act as follows:
Section 1, William Ely and John Trask ; Section 2, John MeCloud and Abram Walton; Section 3, Aaron Graham and John Newkirk; Seetion 4, Joseph Cox, Peter Lawrenee and Ralph Tucker; Seetion 6, William Lloyd and James McCray: Section 7. John Meeks; Section 8. Gardner Herring and Gilman Smith; Section 9, Nathan Bennett, Jarville Chaffee, John A. Newhall and James Zings; Section 10, Benjamin Davis, Robert King. John B. MeKenny and John Worts- bough: Section 11, Tryon Fuller, Solomon Libby, John Odam and Joseph Wright; Seetion 12, Roswell Post, Harvey Sperry and Joseph Woodmansee: Section 13, John II. Martin, James Reed. James Selah and J. Il. Winney: Section 14, John Baptiste, Benjamin Lovell and John Lovell: Section 15, John Bruce and Rufus Stanley; Section 17. Samuel Banner, George Blanchard, Aaron Scott and Joseph Elliott: Section 18. Thomas Hamilton and Jacob House; Seetion 19, John Union and George W. Woods; Seetion 20, Thomas Briggs and Jaeob Yost; Seetion 21, Henry Harmon, Cornelius Overlock, Abram Parker and Abram Prior: Section 22. Timothy Green and John Miller: Section 23, Taylor Hardin, John Murray, D. A. Myers and Israel D. Towle: Section 24, David Bell, Charles Cain and Henry Smith: Section 25, Michael Colebrough, Herman Fisher, Edward Keough and Jeffrey Worthington; Seetion 26, John Francis, Abra- ham Lueky, George Miller and Amos L. Smith; Seetion 27, Orra Bardsley, J. V. Feagles, George Phipps and Peter Pilgrim: Section 28, John Mclaughlin, Joseph Lutz and Samuel Little: Seetion 29, Edmund Deady and John Dickaman: Seetion 30, Abraham Bireh and Jeremiah Hillers; Section 31, William Hollings, Joshua Nelson and Tyre Nelson: Seetion 33, Charles Austin, James Coleman and Thomas Merritt: Section 34, John J. Dunbar, Silas Hodson, Ezra Ilutehings and Consider Yeames; Seetion 35, John Hyatt, Charles Maynard, Francis Morrow and Reuben Rowe; Seetion 36, Richard Ford. Charles Frost, William Goodman and Andrew Gott.
Most of these entries were for a quarter seetion each, hence it will be seen that more than fifteen thousand aeres of the land in Essex Township were claimed on land warrants by the veterans of the War of 1812. A few of the elaimants afterward became actual settlers. but the greater number sold their titles, which caused considerable trouble to those who came in later years.
Isaac Essex. the original Stark County pioneer, located upon the sonth half of the northeast quarter of Section 15, a short distance
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west of the Spoon River, about two miles south and one mile west of the present city of Wyoming. Here he built his cabin in the spring of 1829, elcared a few aeres of ground, and raised that year the first crop ever grown by civilized man in Stark County. Compared with present day conditions it was not much of a erop, but it marked the beginning.
In the fall of 1829 John B. Dodge loeated a claim and built a cabin in Section 14, directly east of Isaac Essex. His eabin was the second house in the county. The following spring Benjamin Smith, Dodge's father-in-law, settled in Section 14. His son, Greenleaf Smith, came a little later and located in the same neighborhood. The three eabins of Essex, Dodge and Smith constituted the only habita- tions in the county at the elose of the year 1830. In 1831 eame Wil- liam D. Grant, Thomas Essex, David Cooper, John E. Owings (who occupied the eabin built by Dodge) , Sewell and William P. Smith, and a few others, all of whom settled in what is now Essex Township.
An election was held at the house of Benjamin Smith in August, 1831. when John E. Owings was elected justice of the peace. HIe held the offiee until in 1834, when he sold out to Moses Boardman and removed to Canton, Fulton County.
Between the years 1831 and 1835 a number of immigrants eame in and established homes within the present township limits. Among them were the Leeks, father and son, who came from Tazewell County early in 1832 and built a saw and grist mill on the Spoon River, a short distance southwest of where Wyoming now stands. The mill was washed away by a flood about four years later, but while it stood it was a great convenience to the settlers. Samuel Merrill settled in the northwestern part of the township, about a mile south of the City of Toulon, and a little farther south was the house of Elijah MeClena- han. Sr., where the first election was held after Stark County was created by the aet of March 2, 1839. Stephen Worley settled south of MeClenahan and in 1834 Thomas Winn came from Indiana and built a cabin in Section 16.
Jarville Chaffee, who laid elaim to a part of Section 9 under the Military Bounty Act in 1818, came from Michigan in May, 1834, and stopped with one of the settlers until he could build a house of his own. Concerning that house, Leeson's History of Stark County says: "Thinking to get up something extra he split the logs, white- washed the inside, and had an upstairs reached by a ladder."
To Essex Township belongs the distinetion of being the site of the first postoffice and the first schoolhouse in Stark County. A
1
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weekly mail route was established from Springfield, via Peoria, to Galena in 1833 and the same year an office was opened in the "Essex Settlement," with Isaac B. Essex as postmaster. The neighbors took turns in bringing the mail from the "office under the bluff" in Peoria County. Mrs. Shallenberger says: "The office was an old boot box, set upon pins driven into the wall, high and dry, and above the reach of the children in the cabin of Mr. Essex. In 1833 only two newspapers were taken in the county-one by Mr. Essex and the other by Benjamin Smith. At this date two weeks were required to get a paper from Springfield, and a proportionately longer time to get intelligence from Washington or the East." The office was at first called Essex, but after the Town of Wyoming began to grow it was removed to that place and the name changed to Wyoming.
By the act of March 1, 1833, Isaac B. Essex was appointed commissioner of the school fund in his settlement and authorized to sell section 16. The section was soll on February 4, 1834, for $968.70. Madison Winn, in a paper read before the meeting of the Old Settlers' Association in 1886, says:
"On the fourth day of July, 1834, the people came together for the purpose of building a schoolhouse. The site chosen was near the northeast corner of seetion 15, in Essex Township. The building was planned to be twenty feet square and all went to work with a will, some eutting, some hanling, some making clapboards and others build- ing. By noon it was built up waist high, and there coming a shower we arranged the clapboards over the wall and underneath ate our Fourth of July dinner. The first day the walls were built up to the roof, which was soon covered, and from Leek's Mill slabs were brought for seats. A post was driven into the ground and a slab laid on it for a teacher's desk, while mother earth was the floor. Adam Perry commenced school about July 15th, with about thirty scholars, out of which number I am the only one living."
From that humble beginning the school system of Essex has de- veloped until in 1914 the township had ten publie school buildings, valued at $26,750, and employed sixteen teachers. One of the school buildings is in the City of Wyoming.
Two lines of railway-the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacifie and the Chicago, Burlington & Quiney-furnish transportation to the people living east of the Spoon River, the stations being Duncan and Wyo- ming, and those living in the northwestern part of the township find their railroad accommodations at Toulon.
The population of Essex Township in 1910 was 1,131, which in-
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chided the Third Ward of the City of Wyoming, and in 1914 the property was valued for tax purposes at $872,440.
GOSHEN TOWNSHIP
Congressional township 13, range 5, prior to the introduction of the township system in 1853, was known as "Lafayette Precinct." In that year it was organized as a civil township and was named "Goshen," because a number of the early settlers in that part of the county came from the Town of Goshen, Clermont County, Ohio. It - is bounded on the north by Henry County; on the east by Toulon Township; on the south by the Township of West Jersey, and on the west by Knox County. The surface is generally level or slightly rolling, well drained by Indian Creek and its tributaries in the eastern part and by Walnut Creek in the southwest. There is some prairie land in the township and the Walnut Creek Valley is one of the most fertile portions of the county.
Probably owing to the fact that this part of the county was in- habited by Indians for several years after the War of 1812, fewer entries of land were made by soldiers in Goshen than in the other townships of Stark County. Consequently the early settlers here were not subjected to the uncertainty of titles that attached to many other parts of the military tract. Among those who entered lands under the provisions of the Military Bounty Aet were:
Daniel Shattuck, E. B. Ware and James Ware, section 1; Isaae Bingham, Elisha Courtney and Rubull Parrish, seetion 2; Isaac Fos- ter, section 7: Alexander Frazier and Francis Tibbins, seetion 11; Jesse Bradbury. Daniel Hand and James Matthews, section 12; George Newton and Henry Webb, section 13: John Foster, section 24; Solomon Dodd and Herman Johnson, section 25: Jonas Witti- ford, section 35: Matthew Caldwell and Walter Thornton, section 36. After the removal of the Indians a few of these veterans settled upon their claims, but most of the lands were sold to speculators.
'The first settlements in this section were made in 1830, some nine years before the organization of Stark County. Michael Fraker located in the grove a short distance west of the present Village of Lafayette, which still bears the name of Fraker's Grove. There he erected a band mill for the use of himself and his neighbors. This mill was afterward purchased by William Dunbar, one of the pioneers of Goshen Township, familiarly known as the "Old Hatter." It is said that settlers from all parts of the county would bring their furs --
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from rabbit to beaver skins-to Mr. Dunbar to have them made into hats. So well did he do his work his hats would last for years, the owner coming in several times to have them cleaned and reblocked. Other early settlers were the Miners. Parrishes, Hitchcocks, Fitches and a few other families, some of whom lived in what is now Stark County and the others just across the line in Knox.
In 1834 Henry McClenahan settled in the township. entered 240 acres of land in section 31, and continued to reside there until his death in June, 1857. The next year (1835) Conrad and Jacob Emery came from Ohio and settled in the township. Conrad Emery was a veteran of the War of 1812. Nelson Grant, a native of Connecticut, also settled in Goshen in 1835. John White came with his family from Ohio in 1836 and the next year Samuel Parrish, the founder of the Parrish family in Stark County, located on lands which he had pre- viously entered in Goshen Township. He served in the Revolutionary war, afterward settling in Canada and coming from that country to Illinois. He joined the Mormon Church about a year after coming to Illinois and removed to Nauvoo, where he died. Some of his children remained in Stark County, where their descendants still live.
Minott Silliman, the first treasurer of Stark County, entered sev- eral tracts of land in Goshen Township and became a resident of that township in 1837. Barnabas M. and James Jaekson and Elijah Eltzroth were among the settlers of 1838. Mr. Eltzroth was a cabinet maker by trade and made a large part of the furniture used by the first families. The first election for school trustees in Goshen Town- ship was held at his house on April 6. 1839, when Luther Driscoll. Charles H. Miner and Samuel Parrish were elected. Jeremiah Ben- nett was likewise a settler of 1838.
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