USA > Illinois > Stephenson County > The History of Stephenson County, Illinois : containing biographical sketches war record statistics portraits of early settlers history of the Northwest, history of Illinois, &c. > Part 30
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The road was completed to Freeport in 1859, and afterward extended to the Mississippi River at Savannah, thence to Rock Island.
These enterprises stimulated industry and improvements, attracted increased emigration, appreciated the price of lands and increased the pros- pects of markets so instantly, that landholders became feverish with expectations of suddenly acquired wealth and were happy in contemplating the cheerful out- look.
Nothing could have happened since the coming of the first settlers to add so pronounced an impetus to the agencies of civilization, which had been for years, it might be said, falling behind, as these undertakings. Towns were sur- veyed and laid off along the routes of these roads ; manufacturing, educational, religious and other interests were cultivated, lots sold for city prices, buildings were erected, the area of cultivation increased, and when the roads were com- pleted a bound was experienced in prices that repaid the toilers for all the suf- ferings and privations they had previously undergone. Since then, with these arteries of wealth and commerce coursing the territory' in nearly every direction, Stephenson County has enjoyed unrivaled facilities for its com- plete development and thrift and prosperity, barring the panics of 1857, and that precipitated by " Black Friday," continuous and unfailing.
Freeport was not less benefited than the surrounding country. Thence onward the history of the city is not marked by any of the great trials, troubles or vexations of spirit which have been the lot of other corporations. The
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jealousies which had previously been indulged by rivals in the county, yielded to the logic of events and were dissipated. Strange contrast with the closing month of 1835, when William Baker erected his "Indian Trading Post" and Ransomburg was coming to the front in its race for prominence. But the inhabitants who came into the future city, disregarding opposition, struggled manfully in the contest with results which not only attested their wisdom and pluck, but fully confirmed the truth of the premise, that excellence in any un- dertaking invariably follows in the wake of patience, perseverance and industry. The tide of emigration which tended in the direction of Stephenson County, at or about this period, left many who had come with it, residents of the town. Commercial interests increased, Freeport began to be regarded as by no means the least promising municipality west of Chicago, and farming was prose- cuted constantly and successfully. The uncertainties that succeeded the panic of 1837 were settled, and in their stead a feeling of confidence was substituted, which found expression in permanent and remunerative investments. Some improvements were projected, and a limited number completed. The water- power of Pecatonica River had been utilized, and mills and factories were com- pleted or contemplated. In short, the aggregate of business in city and county would be far in excess of previous years. These predictions were surely real- ized. The business portion of the town was limited to Galena and Stephenson streets, and, though carried on in establishments by no means epitomes of architectural skill or elegance, answered the purposes for which they had been erected. The residence part of the town was not a prominent feature, either. Some of the merchants not only " traded," but lived, moved and had their being in their stores. The court house was the most elaborate structure, and contin- ued to do duty for a variety of purposes, as of yore. The log schoolhouse on the bank of the river had been abandoned for school purposes, and the " old red schoolhouse " had become its successor. Religious classes were formed, and congregations organized, though it was not until two years later that the Presbyterians erected the first church edifice in the town.
Politics had by this time assumed some degree of prominence, if not regarded as a staple commodity, and leaders were found, representing opposing sentiments, who attracted a generous following and support. The Whigs con- tended for superiority, and the Democrats felicitated themselves in the belief that they were the sole possessors of an air-line route to future success.
The towns tributary to Freeport were equally fortunate, though to a more limited extent. Those who, for reasons satisfactory to themselves, preferred to identify themselves with those of similar ambition without its growth, " skipped " the county seat, and wended their several ways to Winslow, Orangeville and . other points advertising advantages of location and promise of future eminence. Both these places were building up, having been laid out, as already mentioned, in anticipation of that dawn of prosperity which came gradually but surely. The New England Land Company, through agents in one and private enter- prise in the other, had employed capital and labor in behalf of each with happy results. The history of neither of these points has ever been fruitful of events that would either immortalize the names of their founders or startle the nation ; but both offer the inducements of quiet, social, educational and refining influen: ces to the professional and mechanical representative, for homes afar from the busy haunts of trade, where the sunshine of days unborn may be reflected, beautifying the present and lighting up the future with rays of purity.
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HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY.
FAMINE OF 1848.
Such was the outlook, as it appeared to citizens and settlers in the fall of 1847, and was prorogued into 1848. These encouraging signs gave birth to a new condition of things, and elicited the most enthusiastic expressions among men who reason correctly. The spring of 1848 opened with a revival of business, and some settlers came with its dawn. Trade and commerce, which had so short a time before only survived, were large, and agriculturists, who had previously been dependent upon purchasers at other points for the sales of their products and stores of supplies, found accessible markets at home. This year, it will be remembered, the great famine prevailed in Ireland, and America responded to the calls of their famishing brethren over the sea. Ste- phenson County then contained a large number of Irishmen, who contributed of their abundance to the relief necessitated by the afflictions at home. And this was not confined to that nationality, either. Though there does not seem to have been any concert of action throughout the county, or the convening of meetings for the purpose of inaugurating united action, the sympathies of the people were not backward of expressing themselves, in liberal donations to the needy and afflicted in Ireland. Charity, generosity and sympathy, a trinity of virtues that grace the composition of true manhood, were not then, nor have they ever been, found wanting among settlers in new countries, and those who created Stephenson County proved no exception to the rule.
TOWNSHIP ORGANIZATION.
From 1837, the year during which Stephenson County was set apart from Jo Daviess, and civil government inaugurated, until the adoption of township organization, the county government was composed of three Commissioners, the first of which were Lemuel G. Streator, Isaac G. Forbes, and Julius Smith. This form of municipal government was maintained until 1850.
The Constitution of Illinois, adopted March 6, 1848, and in force from and after April 1 of that year, declared that "the General Assembly shall provide, by a general law, for a township organization, under which any county may organize whenever a majority of the voters of such county, at any general election., shall so determine.'
At the session of the Legislature of 1849, the following act, providing for the proper organization of a township, by way of supplement to that quoted, was adopted :
" Art. 1. Section 1. That at the next gen- eral election to be held in the several counties in this State, the qualified voters of each county may vote, for or against 'township organization' in their respective counties," etc.
Acting in obedience to these enactments, the constituted authorities issued a proclamation directing the holding of an election in Stephenson County, on the 5th day of November, 1849, for the purpose of indicating their adoption of the organization, provided for by the act cited. The opposition to this change in the form of government was neither numerous nor intense. There were some few, however, who were antagonistic to the proposed new order of affairs, but their votes of discord were drowned in the general acclamations which greeted its introduction, and at the election holden according to law, township organi- zation was accepted by a vote of 973 to 99. At the same election, George Purinton was elected County Judge, with George W. Andrews and Lewis Gibler, Associates ; William Preston, County Clerk, and J. B. Smith, School Commissioner.
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HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY.
These preliminaries having been disposed of, the county entered at once upon its changed plan of government, and little delay was experienced in adapting the same to immediate and successful practice.
The officers elected under the law qualified, and the County Court was con- vened in December, the Hon. George Purinton presiding. At its first session, Levi Robey, Robert Foster and Erastus Torrey were appointed Commissioners to lay off and subdivide the county into townships, pursuant to the statute in such case made and provided, and proceeded to organize and discharge the duties imposed without the exercise of unnecessary delay.
After some time employed in laying off the township boundaries, adjusting disputes and completing their work, the Commissioners appointed by the court submitted a report, detailing the result of their labors to have been the sub- division of the county as provided by law, into the following townships : Rock Grove, Oneco, Wislow, West Point, Waddams, Buckeye, Rock Run, Freeport, Lancaster, Harlem, Erin, Loran, Florence, Silver Creek and Ridott. The township of Harlem was subsequently changed to Wayne by Commissioner Torrey, but the change, having been made after the submission of the report, and being without authority, was never confirmed.
This report was accepted, and on the 5th of November, 1850, the follow- ing-named persons were elected Supervisors for their respective towns: Jonathan Reitzell, Lancaster ; C. G. Epley, Rock Run ; James J. Rogers, Rock Grove ; George Cadwell, Oneco; Cornelius Judson, Winslow ; Michael Lawver, Wad- dams ; John Montelius, Buckeye ; Daniel Wilson, West Point ; William M. Buckley, Harlem ; John I. F. Harman, Erin ; Conrad Van Brocklin, Flor- ence ; Gustavus A. Farwell, Ridott ; Samuel McAfee, Silver Creek ; Hiram Hart, Loran, and E. S. Hanchett, Freeport.
The first meeting of the board was convened on November 11, 1850, and its organization perfected by the election of John I. F. Harman as Chairman. The members of the board were all present except Hanchett, of Freeport, who was absent, and failing to qualify, John K. Brewster was appointed in his stead, and took his seat as Supervisor from Freeport.
The number of townships in the county was afterward increased by the formation of new townships out of those created as follows, and the representa- tion augmented: On the 17th of March, 1856, the township of Kent was formed out of a part of Erin ; at the September meeting of the board for the same year, the township of Loran was subdivided, the western portion being organized into Jefferson, and, in 1860, the township of Dakota was formed by the appropriation of the eastern portion of Buckeye to its name and posses- sion.
From this on the organization has been preserved, and found to answer every expectation ventured in its behalf.
THE HEGIRA TO CALIFORNIA, 1849.
During this year, as will be inferred by reference to the tally lists kept at the election held in November, the population had become "numerous " through- out the county. The towns had grown, as every one who watched the progress of events admitted. Mills had become fixtures, and supplied the markets with lumber, flour and meal. Farmers disposed of their crops, and merchants and speculators made investments that the rust of age would not corrupt, and held them for the " boom " that came in after years.
About this time the California gold fever, which had been of an "intermit- tent " character since 1847, attacked Stephenson County residents with &
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HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY.
violence that brooked no mitigation, and there were quite a number who pro- cured outfits and proceeded across the plains to the Sutter discoveries. The excitement was not confined to any particular portion, but distributed itself quite generally ; wherever a settler had established his claim the " fever " put in an appearance, and, unless immediately checked, most generally added to the number of its victims. The list who wandered into that comparatively undis- covered land, numbered nearly a hundred this year, among whom were many young men who could be ill spared from the fields, or the commercial and professional walks in which they. had become familiar to the public. Many of those who went thither returned with a surfeit of experience and poverty. A number remained in the West and rose to prominence, occupying positions of executive, as also legislative and judicial honor, in the Territories. Several that were well known in the town of Freeport, where, for the times, they were prosper- ously engaged, dropped the certainty of future preferment for the uncertainties of success in this new field, and became residents of that city beside the blue waves of the bay which rolls outward through the Golden Gate to the Pacific. Here they seemed to fail of realizing their too sanguine hopes, and fled to the interior, where they might be able to acquire in the mines that denied them in the city by arduous toil. Finally, they disappeared from these scenes, and, emigrating to Mexico, as some have it, or to Nicaragua, as others insist, joined the filibusters and went down with Walker, the " gray-eyed man of destiny," in his hopeless campaigns.
Among the rest, there went from Stephenson County, John Mease, Elmus Baker, B. T. Buckley, Charles Willet, John Kirkpatrick, William Vore, Onesimus Weaver, - Shutz, William Patterson, Alfred Cadwell, J. W. Shaffer, P. C. Shaffer, Joseph Carey, S. B. Farwell, Charles Bogar, Joseph Quest, William Young, Robert Hammond, Charles O'Neil, Horatio Hunt (about this time), Cameron Hunt, who became Governor of Colorado, and many others whose names cannot be recalled, and whose fate is not of record.
The crusaders in pursuit of gold usually went in parties, but rendezvoused at Freeport to lay in their stock of supplies, reserving organization until they had departed from the last habitable location previous to entering the Indian country. When they had secured what their necessities called for, pending departure, they left homes and friends, and, " striking out " over the prairie, crossed Iowa and encamped at Omaha, where final arrangements were concluded, and the long, weary trip to this promising El Dorado entered upon. For a few years next succeeding, reports of their success and condition came at intervals, and in some cases were the opposite of rose-colored. Sometimes the friends of those who had gone were shocked at the news received, sometimes they were hope -. ful ; at no time were they enthusiastic. Gradually, and in shreds and patches, the story of their lives, and, in some instances, the death that had befallen them, their trials and their triumphs, were detailed and combined to weave a story from the warp and woof of real life as pathetic as it had been disastrous, as discouraging as it was pitiful, with bright chapters of success and happiness interspersed among its somber pages like a glint of sunshine on a day in December.
There were citizens of Stephenson County also who went to California through another-that is, they invested in outfits for others' benefits, and pro- vided the ways and means to enable them to reach the land of promise, with a specific understanding that they should participate in the profits ; but in nearly every instance this confidence was found to be misplaced, and the investment made by the too confiding capitalist became permanent, with all that the term implies.
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HISTORY OF STEPHENSON COUNTY.
The effects of this emigration, while not discouraging to those who remained behind willing to labor and to wait, were not specially calculated to promote an extravagant enthusiasm. Large sums, comparatively, had been expended by the adventurers in the purchase of outfits, which created an increased volume of trade ; but this diminished with the departure of the purchasers, and a seeming paralysis affected the commercial and agricultural branches. Indeed, business was carelessly prosecuted, and there was an absence of spirit that was not pre- viously visible. The area of cultivation was measurably reduced in consequence of this exodus to California ; trade dragged, values were lowered, money became inconveniently scarce, and other evils followed in their wake. In fact, the effects that would naturally be produced on any settlement of substantially recent date by the withdrawal from its territory of fully one or two hundred residents, all young and able-bodied, was duplicated in Stephenson County.
The fall gave place to winter, and that most inhospitable season of the year remained undisturbed by the happening of any accident or incident out of the sluggish current of events. Settlers drifted in during its course, and united with those already there in expressing confidence that the temporary dull times would give way to prosperous days with the return of spring, and the doubts and uncertainties, in the midst of which they then suffered, would be dissipated by the "logic of events." Buoyed up by such hopes, this dreary, inactive win- ter passed, and, as predicted, the county and its municipalities were granted a new lease of life. When spring blossoms came once more forth, the California fever had spent its force, and the county was rapidly convalescing from the vio- lence of its attacks. Emigration was resumed, the new arrivals hailing from Pennsylvania and the Eastern States, and bringing with them, to supply the absence of material resources, the thrift, industry, and other characteristics of a people reared in a sterile section, where man's daily bread is indeed obtained in the sweat of his brow.
In 1850, when the United States census was taken, the population of the county was quoted at 11,658, an increase of over 9,000 in ten years. Fifty private schools, with an average daily attendance of 2,000 scholars, had suc- ceeded to ten schools and 170 scholars in 1840. The improved lands in the county were estimated at 76,343 acres; lands unimproved aggregated upward of 280,000 acres. Farms in the county represented a valuation of $1,689,550, and farming implements, $108,000. There were four church edifices in the county, the most prominent being the brick Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Walnut and Stephenson streets, Freeport, and other improvements which might be included under the head of "public." This year there were 764,814 bushels of grain of all kinds raised in the county, and the cultivation of fruit had assumed a reasonably gratifying prominence.
During this decade, experiences similar to those which had previously greeted the county and its inhabitants, as also those of other sections, were endured and enjoyed. In 1850, a colony of Germans settled in Ridott Town- ship, and others who came at the same time, of the same race, became residents of townships immediately contiguous to and distant from the "tenting places" of their friends and countrymen, on the old State road, in the southeasternmost township of the county.
The construction of the Galena & Chicago Railroad was progressing slowly, and that of the Illinois Central only awaited legislation before commencing.
During the earlier years of the decade, beginning with 1850, pilgrims to California had, in some cases, given up their pursuit of gold, and returned home ; others, on whom the fickle goddess had smiled benignantly, evidenced
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the fruit of their labors by remittances to families and friends. In truth, there was a small per centage of liabilities incurred, and long since charged to P. and L., liquidated with the profits accruing from labor in the mines.
In the city and county new faces were seen daily, and new arrivals for business noted in the weekly record of current events, which was then published by S. D. Carpenter, and known as the Prairie Democrat. Property, again, was regarded as increasing in value, new buildings were put up, both of brick and frame, commodious, substantial and appropriate to the purposes for which they were designed, was it either residence or business. In addition to these evidences of reviving prosperity, societies, both religious and secular, were organized ; associations, financial, commercial and social, were improvised and perfected. Thirteen years only had been required to accomplish what in days more remote had required, one might say, ages. In that period a wilderness had been converted into a garden. The iron age, in which man had been heated in the flames of adversity, and molded into form to combat opposition, had been converted into a golden age, when farms and factories resounded with the songs of rejoicing, when merchants were successful, and the cry of penury was silent in the land; when schoolhouses were filled with ambitious youth, and churches with consistent worshipers. Law, science, ethics, politics and eloquence had their exponents among the inhabitants, and refinement and Christian humanity were possessions to which they held an indisputable title.
There was nothing of moment worthy of perpetuation during this year ; business remained flourishing, and enterprises born of the encouraging season were ushered into being, with some confidence in the results. Migration began to resume somewhat of its former importance, and improved facilities for marketing products more than roused business men from the apathy of a former day.
CHOLERA VISITATIONS.
As is intimated, this decade dawned upon the county rich in fruition and promise. They were accepted and utilized, and that at a time when the inhabitants were on the eve of a calamity, in comparison with which war and famine can scarcely be mentioned.
The Asiatic cholera made its first visitation to Stephenson County in 1850, again in 1852, and once more two years later. The first "epidemic " was limited to a few sporadic cases, and disappeared late in the season, without creating more than passing alarm. But it left its mark in the families from which members had laid down the burden of life and slept beneath the sod. When it repeated its calls in 1852, the people, immersed in business and agri- cultural pursuits, without taking thought of the morrow, not having been admon- ished by the hints dropped two years previous, were ill prepared for its advent. The health of the county was regarded as perfect, there being an exceptional freedom from the miasmatic maladies that had in early times prevailed, as sin- gular as it was gratifying. Nature smiled upon the landscape, and all the ele- ments combined to cultivate hope in the breasts of the people, who had for years toiled as the children of Israel, without reward or prospects. As the summer came, bringing with it the climatic excesses peculiar to the season, the disease began to manifest its presence in localities ordinarily healthful, as also subject to disease. The cases received prompt attention, but in the majority of instances terminated fatally. Remedies regarded as specifics for the malady produced no effect, the attack generally proving so violent that the system would become exhausted under its influence before the medicine could operate
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and induce reaction. Its origin could not be traced to any authentic cause, and its dissipation defied the efforts of physicians. Freeport was greatly afflicted, the deaths there reaching as high as eighteen in one day. Ridott Township, in the vicinity of Nevada, suffered grievously under the calls of the scourge, as did Kirkpatrick's Mills, and other points accessible to its approach. One gentleman, who was here in those days of tribulation, stated that there was scarcely a family on the old State road in which there was not one of its members down with the disease, dying or buried. Indeed, he represents the state of affairs as deplorable in the last degree. It may be imagined that dur- ing the existence of the plague, the inhabitants, terror-stricken at its approach and subsequent presence, with one accord fled from the wrath to come or when it rapped at his neighbor's door. This was not the case. Physicians and nurses for the sick were procurable at nearly all hours, and men and women attended to the calls of the dying and buried the dead with a tenderness and heroism which fully attested their Christian charity and spirit of self-sacrifice. Along in the fall, having run its course, the disease abated, and nothing of its visitation remained but the vacancies it had made in the home and by the fire- side, and the fresh-turned graves to be seen in the village churchyard. It looked in upon the people again in 1854, but left without repeating its observa- tions of 1852, and has since remained at an enchanting distance from this vicinity.
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