USA > Illinois > DeKalb County > Past and present of DeKalb County, Illinois, Volume I > Part 8
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PAST AND PRESENT OF DE KALB COUNTY.
a further confab followed until finally one of the commissioners, Mr. Walker, told the party to go home, but to return on the morrow, when the county seat would be located.
The eventful day arrived and so did the crowd. The party mounted and again visited each and every place they had gone to the day previous, with the exception of Genoa. The commissioners said that Genoa was a nice place but too near the north line of the county to be available. Then Commissioner Walker spoke and informed the crowd that with the concurrence of the other com- missioners (one of them was absent in St. Louis), he should designate the place selected by Major Wharry for the capital of the county. The other commissioner, Mr. Thurston, who was in close con- fab with Madden at the time, refused to concur with Walker, and advised that the absent commis- sioner be summoned. He was asked if he would be present providing the absent man could be got here and replied that he would not-that he would never come there again. This exasperated the Major and his friends, and they finally made him say as to which of the different sites visited he preferred ; and, being considerably frightened by the demonstration made. said that if he must, he would say that Wharry' selection seemed the most favorable. The matter was ended by Walker. who stuck a stake, painted red at the top. near where the courthouse now stands, and the crowd drove it four feet into the ground. Afterwards a hickory pole about one hundred feet high was raised on the spot by the Major and his friends, where it stood with colors flying from the top.
Madden continued to fight against the location with all his might, but the people of the county came forth winners. The friends of the Major here were aided by the settlers at the southern extremity of the county on the condition that the former should aid them in their desire to be set off and become a part of the county adjoining them on the south, which was agreed to. The support given to the Half-Shire bill some years ago by the peo- ple here is said by the Major to have been in con- squence of the agreement spoken of. but how this may be we do not pretend to know or to say.
The land tract located by Major Wharry and Mr. Sharer in the interest of the land company. after the agreement first entered into by Madden and the Major, embraced two square miles of land
with the boundaries as follows : Commencing about one quarter of a mile north of the Roswell Dow place, the west line was run to the south two miles, thence to the east, taking in a portion of Ohio Grove, and which also included the old Indian village, on what is now known as the Tyler farm; thence north two miles, running to the north of Norwegian Grove, and taking in the same, and thence west two miles to the place of beginning. It will thus be seen by those familiar with the section of country embraced within the lines, tha the tract included the quarter section upon which the county seat was to be located, and which is now the Thomas Wood farm. The Major tells us that the tract was marked out with a plow, four yoke of oxen being used and four days being con- sumed in the undertaking.
Of course the old town north of the river was soon abandoned after the site for the county seat was finally determined upon. We have already spoken of Captain Eli Barnes. The Captain is accredited with building the first house in Syca- more, the same being the present City Hotel, then known as the Mansion House. Although the first constructed, the Barnes tavern was not the first house on the ground. A little wooden build- ing had been moved here from the old Hamlin place. south of here, and was occupied by a Dr. Bassett, the first physician of the place. John C. Waterman and Charles Waterman were the first merchants. This was in 1839. This year the old courthouse was built, which stood nearly opposite the present one. and was a very primitive affair. The next year-1840-the village consisted of about a dozen houses. Among other residents at the time, and whose names are familiar to many of our readers. were E. S. Jewell, D. Banister, Jesse C. Kellogg. Carlos Lattin, L. D. Walrod. Jos. Sixbury, F. Love, and Marshall Stark. The Mayos and other early settlers did not come until a year or two later.
By the way, we asked the Major how he got his title. We supposed he had seen actual military service : participated. perhaps. in the Black Hawk or some other memorable war, and were anxions to hear him recount his military exploits. But in this we were disappointed. He was only Major of a company organized in the earliest days here for protection against the raids of the banditti of the prairies, who infested this portion of the west.
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PAST AND PRESENT OF DE KALB COUNTY.
In the same way Marshall Stark got to be colonel and Eli Barnes captain. Many now living re- member seeing Captain Barnes at the head of Fourth-of-July processions in Sycamore, dressed in uniform with sword and pistols, and mounted on his clumsily caparisoned steed. We remember him well, and it was with a feeling of awe that we gazed upon his stern features, and heard the severe orders as they issued from his lips to those under his command. He has long since been dead.
At the elections for years there were no election tickets as now. A man appeared before judges of elections, first gave his name. then his choice was announced orally by him and written down on a tally sheet.
At the beginning of the year 1838, the m:1- chinery of the county was fairly set in working order and it was necessary that a term of court should be held for the trial of civil and eriminal suits. The court house not being ready for oc- cupancy it was decided to hold the first term of the circuit court at the residence of Rufus Colton. The first grand jurors of the county were George II. Hill, Nathan Billings, William A. Miller, Ly- sander Darling, John Whitney, John Eastabrooks, William Miles, Henry Madden, Eli Barnes. Phineas Stevens, Alpheus Jenks, Russell D. Cross- ett, John Maxfield, William Davis, Maltby B. Cleveland, D. S. Bullard, Zachariah Wood. Ralph Wyman. Benjamin Stephens. Joseph A. Arm- strong, Henry B. Barber, Reuben Nichols, Justin Crafts. Petit jurors, C. W. Branch, E. F. White, Abner Jackman, Peter Lamoise, Clark Wright, John Elliott, Clark L. Barber, Joseph A. Mc- Collum, Russell Huntley, Ora A. Walker, John Corkins, Solomon Wells, H. N. Perkins, Jacob Cox, Lyman Judd, Henry Durham, F. A. Wither- spoon, John Sebree, Marshall Stark, Jeremiah Burleigh, John Riddle. William Russell, Watson Y. Pomeroy, Ezra Hansen. As the coming circuit court was expected to cause an unusual demand for stationery. the clerk of the county commis- sioner's court was authorized to purchase two dol- lars worth, and in addition was voted the sum of ten dollars to pay for a book of record.
Three tavern licenses were granted this year- one to Russell Huntley, at what is now the city of De Kalb, one to John Eastabrooks at Squaw Grove. and one to H. N. Perkins at the present village of
Genoa, and to guard against extortion the board enacted that the rates for the government tavern keepers for the ensuing year be as follows: For each meal of victuals, thirty-one cents : for lodg- ing each person, twelve and a half cents; for each horse to hay over night, twelve and a half cents; for each bushel of oats, seventy-five cents. These were great prices in those days, and were more than were usually charged. Two years later, the price of a dinner in De Kalb county was twelve and a half cents, and a man was boarded for a week for one dollar. The total of the county tax levied the first year of its political existence was two hundred and sixteen dollars and fifty cents, but the deputy sheriff, James Phillips, after work- ing through the winter was unable to collect more than eighty-four dollars and thirty-seven cents. In August of this year three new county commis- sioners were elected. They were Eli G. Jewell, Burrage Ilough, and Henry Hix. They were partisans of the Orange people in the county seat contest, and ordered that the October of court be held in the house of Captain Eli Barnes, which was then supposed to be under construction. Captain Barnes' house existed only in imagination and Mr. Colton, clerk of the circuit court had made all processes returnable at his residence. The ignus fatui was still dazzling before his eyes and he hoped still with the aid of Dr. Madden to have it located there. At this time Coltonville was the largest village of the county, it had a store, a tavern, a blacksmith shop, a doc- for, a lawyer, and some of its citizens were plan- ning the erection of a distillery.
Madden and Colton both being sorely vexed at being overruled in their choice of a county seat. had put their heads together to procure a removal by combining against Orange the two parties who favored Brush Point and Coltonville; and they managed it in this wise. Mr. Madden, who was still a member of the legislature, had during the last winter's session, procured the passage of an act providing that a vote should be taken first for or against the removal of the county seat from Orange. It was presumed that the two parties fa- voring Brush Point and Coltonville would combine and could carry this measure, for removal. In that case a second vote was to be taken upon Colton- ville or Brush Point, and the place receiving the highest number of votes was to be the county seat
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PAST AND PRESENT OF DE KALB COUNTY.
Madden returned, and made no public mention of the passage of this ict, but it was strongly sus- pected by the Orange men. that something of thi- kind had been done, and was to be "put through on the sly." It was finally discovered in this way. A certain bachelor of Genoa. Gleason by name, who was attached to the Orange party, invaded th Brush Point settlement one Sunday night. in search of a wife. From his fair Dulcinea, he learned to his surprise, that on the next Monday weck, an election was to be held in that settle- ment to remove the county seat. Gleason informed his friends of what he had heard, and it was agreed that the Orange men should meet them d' the polls and vote the removal project down. J. C Kellogg and E. G. Jewell were dispatched south in the night to rouse their friends in Somonauk.
In due time the polls were opened, and to the surprise of the Brush Pointers, were opened in those precincts opposed to the change, as well as those which favored it. The unfairness of the secret conspiracy was so apparent that in Som- onauk precinct, which then included six townships. forty-five of the forty-seven votes cast were agains' removal. The project was voted down by seven- teen majority, in the whole county.
Coltonville had grown since the summer before when the first term of the county commissioner; court was held there. There were four or five houses there now, but how the crowd of people that assembled on this memorable occasion was pro- vided for must every ever be a mystery to futur generations. The first term of the court was held in a small framed house one story and a half in height, which, a few years after. was moved down to Sycamore, and is now the residence of W. W. Bryant, and standing nearly opposite the Univer- salist church. Hon. John Pearson, the judge, re- sided at Danville, Vermilion county. and the ex- tent of his circuit may be judged from this fact. He was subsequently removed for incompetener. Rufus Colton was the clerk. and Amasa Hunting- ton states attorney. There were but twenty suits upon the docket, none of them sharply contested cases. The first suit was one in which Erasmus D. Walrod was plaintiff and Stephen Harwood was defendant, but before the trial commenced it was settled by agreement of parties-a good first ex- ample which has not since been followed so close-
ly as would have been to the advantage of the county.
The duty of the twenty-four grand jurors and the states attorney, were ended when they had found an indictment against one William Taylor for passing counterfeit money. Taylor was sup- posed to be one of an organized gang that even at this carly day was infesting the country, and swindling the honest citizens. Not being ready for trial, he was retained in charge of the county until the next term. After being comfortably boarded for several weeks by the Barber family the county commissioners ordered him to the Will county jail, at Joliet, which was then the nearest available place of confinement; and out of the scantily furnished treasury of the county they paid forty-five dollars to a guard for conveying him there. When he was next brought out for trial he escaped from the guard and was seen no more in this section of the country; and when in addi- tion this misfortune. the Will county jailor sent in a bill for twenty-five dollars for his board, it bank- rupted the treasury; the commissioners indignant- ly refused to allow it and demanded the items. After this dear experience in the capture of crim- inals it became the policy to overlook all crimes that were not too public and hienous, and when an offense had been committed that could not bc overlooked. the county officers sometimes contrived that a hint should be given to the offender that he would probably be arrested. and that it would be expedient for him to leave the country before that event should occur. In this way they rid them- selves of the elephant. In December of this year. a meeting of county commissioners provided for ascertaining upon what section of land the coun- ty seat had been placed. The county had not ver been surveyed by the United States. Nobody knew where the boundaries of the county were. nor were any other lines definitely ascertained. It was necessary that the county should first make its pre-emption claim to the quarter section that the law required it should own. as privato individuals made their claims, and then should survey and sell the village lots: out of the proceeds of which sale the public buildings were to be erected. guarantee- ing of course to the purchasers. that when the land came in market the county would purchase and pay for it.
PAST AND PRESENT OF DE KALB COUNTY.
For this purpose the commissioners duly author- ized and directed Eli G. Jewell to obtain the ser- vices of a surveyor and bring a fine or lines from somne survey made under the authority of the ge eral government down to the county seat, and ther cause a number of town lots not exceeding eighty, to be laid out, platted and recorded, the expense of which survey it was prudently provided should be paid out of the proceeds of the sale of the lots. At this term the rate of compensation to jurors was fixed at seventy-five cents per day, but at thi- rate was found to canse a heavy drain npon the treasury, it was subsequently reducted to fifty cents.
Frederic Love was appointed first school com- missioner for the county, and was also granted a license to keep a tavern. Love's capacious cabin was as public a place as any in the county. He called it Centerville, and hoped that at some time it would become the county seat. Henry Durham of Genoa, was granted a merchant's license at this term of the court. A few years later, the village at that point had become the largest and most lively in the county. In September, 1838, Shal ;- bona, the old Indian, employed James S. Water- man to survey the two sections of land which the government had granted him in that section of the country. During this year a company under the name of Jenks & Company, representing eon- siderable capital, constructed a mill upon the Kish- wakee, in the present town of De Kalb on the land now occupied by Albert Sehryvers farm, and projected a village which, however, was never built up. The large barn now-1867-standing upon that farm was one of the first framed buildings in the county, and was used on several occasions for the religious services of the quarterly meetings of the Methodists.
The year 1839 was memorable as one of great suffering among the new settlers, from sickness. During the spring and autumn months, over most of the county, there were hardly enough of the well to take proper care of the sick. Ague an.l bilious fevers were the prevailing diseases. They resulted from the close proximity to the groves and streams to which the new comers all buitt their houses, and were aided by the insufficient and coni- fortless little dwellings : also by the bad surface water from the sloughs which they used in the want of well of proper depth to supply water
which was pure. It was difficult also, to secure medical attendance and the physicians who prac- ticed through the country, rarely had a sufficient supply of medicine. A citizen relates his disap- pointment when after having gone shaking with agne seven miles on foot to a doctor for a dose of quinine, the doctor told him solemnly. "No young man, I can't let you have it ; you are young, and can wear out the disease. I must save my little supply for cases in which it is needed to save life, for I don't know when I shall be able to ob- tain any more."
Deaths were numerous, and the few carpenters in the country who were able to work, were at times busy night and day in making coffins. It was noticed that one settlement on the border of the county, in Franklin, afterward known as the Pennsylvania settlement, was quite free from the prevalent diseases. The three or four houses that composed this little village. were built by Dr. Hobart. Albert Fields, and William Ramsey, two miles from the timbered lands and in the middle of the prairie. To this was due their exemption from disease.
The water problem in a new country seemed to be a most serious one. for had these settlers been provided with pure water, how much suffering and death might have been avoided. In 1839 there were more cases of typhoid fever, and more deaths resulting therefrom out of a population of about twelve hundred, that our county then possessed, than there has been in the last five years of our history and with a population of over thirty thon- sand.
Slough wells were about the only sources of drinking water. Even as late as 1842 Sveamore had but three wells fit for use. Many instances of suffering are related. and the medical attend- ance was of little service and difficult to get. Trained nurses were unknown. The afflicted were at the mercy of the good neighbors and a new attendant came each evening.
Later came the deep bricked well, then the tubular well, which made far better health and disproved the old theory that settlements away from running water were impracticable.
But the citizens in the vicinity of the county seat found time to build a new court house. The survey lines ordered by the county commissioners, had been brought down from the neighborhood of
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PAST AND PRESENT OF DE KALB COUNTY.
Rockford, where some government surveying had already been done. and the village of Sycamore was staked out. The inhabitants of this place for all future time, may thank Captain Eli Barnes and James S. Waterman for the broad streets that now add so much to the beauty of the village. To many of the people, they seemed, at the time, unnecessarily wide, but the sensible plea that there was a whole continent of prairie before them, and that when Sycamore became a city they would be needed to accommodate its business, prevailed. and they were laid out one hundred feet wide. From the time the village was laid out, its original name of Orange was dropped. and Sycamore adopted by common consent.
During the previous winter. Captain Barnes had got together materials for building a spacious tavern at the new county seat, and early in the spring it was erected-the first building put up in this village. It is still standing, directly east of the public square, and has ever since been oc- cupied as a hotel. As an inducement for build- ing it, it was agreed that the block on which it stands should be given to the Captain. free of cost.
This hostelry built of hewn timber in 1839 was the first frame house built in the town and stood for many years on the site of the Sycamore Car- negie Library. Four years ago it was removed about about one hundred feet to the southeast of its old site, where it was repaired and is still occupied as a hotel. The old timbers were in good state of preservation and the "Old Mansion House," as it was once called, bids fair to remain another seventy years as a monument to Captain Barnes, for this building placed Sycamore more firmly "on the map" and was sought by the weary traveler on his search for a home, or the farmer who was com- pelled to market his produce in Chicago by means of ox teams, or a little later by the then swiftest freight, the horse team.
For years this was called "Barnes' Folly," and was supposed to be unnecessary in so small a town. After this. other buildings followed so that we may truthfully say that Captain Barnes set an example that was followed, and for fifty years Sycamore has been known as a well-built. pretty city.
The village having been laid out, the commis- sioners directed Mr. Jewell to proceed to sell lots
at public auction, and with the proceeds to con- tract for building a courthouse and jail.
The anetion was held, and the bidding was spirited. Some fifteen or twenty lots were sold at prices ranging from twenty to fifty dollars. Among the purchasers were Frederick Love, J. C. Kel- logg, James S. Waterman. Harvey Maxfield, Dan- iel Bannister, Almon Robinson, Erastus Barnes, and Timothy Wells.
The proceeds of the sale constituted a little fund out of which, some of the materials for the courthouse were then purchased. Those most in- terested in the matter then took teams and drove to all the sawmills in the country round, and begged or bought, or traded for the necessary lumber. The labor upon the building was done by voluntary contribution. Everyone could do something and all worked with a will.
By the time fixed for the June session of the circuit court. a two-story building twenty by thirty feet had been enclosed, and the county commis- sioners, who were hastily summoned together, or- dered their clerk of the court to notify the judge of the circuit court that they had erected a court- house at the county seat, and that it was ready for occupancy, and requested that he direct the circuit clerk to keep his office there.
Captain Barnes served the order upon the judge Low sitting in court at Coltonville, and the crowd of attendants, augmented by a large body of citi- zens assembled to see what action would be taken upon this order, awaited with great interest the argument upon the proposition to remove to Syca- more. When the judge decided that the court must be removed thence a shout of triumph went up from the Sycamore party, while the opponents of removal were correspondingly depressed. Judge Ford took his record under his arın, States Attor- ney Purple bundled up his papers, the sheriff, the lawyers, juries, parties and witnesses followed suit. and led by Captain Barnes, on that well-known spotted horse that he rode upon all public occa- sions for more than twenty years later. all took up their line of march through the thick woods and across the green prairie, to the new seat of empire at Sycamore. The assemblage was enter- tained at a grand public dinner at the new tavern, where all the luxuries that the country afforded were freely provided by the successful party.
CAPTAIN ELI BARNES.
IION. LEVI LEE.
CLEMENT COMBS.
LICZ LAMPY
STOR, LENOX
1
_N FOUNDATIONS.
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PAST AND PRESENT OF DE KALB COUNTY.
When the court repaired to the new courthouse, it was found that the courthouse was ready for occupancy, was rather more than its condition war- ranted. It had a frame, a roof, and some siding upon it, but there were no doors nor windows, and the only floor was some loose boards covering one- half of the upper story. When the officers of the court had clambered up to the seat of justice in the second story. it found furniture somewhat scarce. A tilting table was the judge's desk, and a broad, rough board was provided for the clerks and attorneys tables-et præterea nihil. It was a rough and primitive arrangement for the enter- tainment of the blind goddess, and if she had had her eyes about her she would have fled from the spot in alarm. A question arose whether process having been made returnable at Coltonville, suits could be tried at another locality, and except a few agreed cases, no litigation was carried on. Wil- liam Taylor, the only criminal, having fortunately run away, and the arrest of all others being care- fully avoided, there was no use for a grand jury, and it had been at once dismissed, and the court speedily adjourned.
The commissioners' court at the June session. divided the county into three assessment districts.
The districts of Franklin. Kingston. and Kish- waukee constituted the first, and of this J. F. Page was chosen assessor. Sycamore. Orange and Ohio districts made the second, and of this, Austin Hay- den was assessor. Somonauk and Paw Paw made the third, and of this Stephen Arnold was asses- sor. The three assessors were each paid for three days' service in assessing the entire property of the county.
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