The History of Will County, Illinois : containing a history of the county a directory of its real estate owners; portraits of early settlers and prominent men; general and local statistics.history of Illinois history of the Northwest, Part 22

Author:
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Chicago : Wm. Le Baron, jr. & co.
Number of Pages: 980

USA > Illinois > Will County > The History of Will County, Illinois : containing a history of the county a directory of its real estate owners; portraits of early settlers and prominent men; general and local statistics.history of Illinois history of the Northwest > Part 22

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HISTORY OF WILL COUNTY.

his capture was a crime against God and man. To aid the fugitives, these underground railroads-so called because the matter was generally conducted secretly and in the night-were established, consisting of relays of well-known friends of the slave, who at any time stood ready to harness a team and forward the slave to the next station. Of course Canada was the destination of the fugitives. Nowhere was he safe under the eagle; only when he got into the embrace of the lion could he breathe free. As we have said, Denny and Haven both kept stations of this kind. It happened in the course of things that Denny, good old Deacon Cushing and Col. Stewart, of whom we shall soon speak, were once indicted under the black laws of our State for aiding such fugitives. As all know, our brave soldier boys and Father Abraham's proc- lamation destroyed the business of the underground railroad. The march of enlightened public opinion has long since brought about the repeal of the black laws of our State.

Allen Denny settled in Sheridan, Chautauqua Co., N. Y., in 1811, when 20 years of age. While there, he engaged in storekeeping, and among other goods, wares and merchandise, sold whisky and its congeners. But he went to hear a lecture of the agent of the State Temperance Society, and was converted to teetotalism. He at once stopped the sale of liquor, and, with five others, one of whom was Samuel Haven, he formed a temperance society. In 1835, he came with the Holmes families to Hickory Creek, where he lived until his death, well known and highly respected. In the war of 1812, he was a soldier, and was present at the battle of Black Rock and the burning of Buffalo, and could give graphic accounts of the stampede of our militia. The Rock Island Railroad run through Mr. Denny's farm, and he laid off a part of it into the village of Mokena. We have not the date of Mr. Allen Denny's death. His brother Lysander died in March, 1872, at the age of 75.

O. and L. M. Clayes we have given as early settlers in West Lockport Township ; but they soon abandoned their claim there, which was on canal land and located on Hickory, where their father, Peter Clayes, and another son, Charles, also settled. Previous to the opening of the railroads, there was a little village (i. e., a store and post office) in the Clayes neighborhood, named Chelsea-L. M. Clayes, Postmaster; but the Cut-Off Railroad cut off its pros. pects as a city. Peter Clayes died in 1849, at the age of 74.

Chester Marshall, who, by the way, was also a Deacon of a Baptist Church, we believe, was also one of these Abolitionists, and a strong temperance man, always on hand at Temperance and Antislavery conventions. He was a tall, large, noble-looking man. Our State Senator, A. O. Marshall, and R. W. Marshall, lawyers, in Joliet, are his grandsons. He died in August, 1859, at the age of 80 years. He came to Will County with Benjamin Weaver, of Yankee Settlement, in 1833, from Onondaga County, N. Y. Phineas H. Holden was also a prominent man in early times. He was the father of C. C. P. Holden, of Chicago ; of Major L. P. Holden, of the Eighty-eighth Illinois

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Regiment, and of Dr. Holden, of Frankfort. He died in 1872, at the age of 80 years. Of Samuel Haven and the other Havens we will speak by and by.

THORN CREEK AND BEEBE'S GROVE.

Still further east and south, in what is now known as the town of Crete, but then having two settlements, known as Beebe's Grove and Thorn Creek, there were early settlements. In 1833-4, Major Price, Wm. Osborn and Asa Dade; in 1835-6, Minoris Beebe, Shipman Frank, Quartus Marsh and four sons (Jon- athan, Edwin, Horatio and Henry), Jas. L. Dean, Wm. Bryant, J. Stalcop, Wm. R. Starr, Willard Wood, Dea. Samuel Cushing (of whom we have spoken), Nor- man Northrop, John H. Bennett, Moses H. Cook, Henry Milliken, Charles Wood, Hazen Adams, John Kyle and son, Enoch Dodge, Henry Ayers, David Haner, John E. Hewes, J. W. Safford and three sons.

One of Mr. Safford's sons was afterward well-known in Joliet, as the con- fidential clerk of Gov. Matteson, while he carried on business in Joliet. He afterward removed to Cairo, and became a prominent business man and banker. Another son was the Hon. C. P. K. Safford, Governor of Arizona. Both have recently deceased. A daughter of Mr. Safford became justly and honorably noted for her efforts in behalf of our soldiers during the war of the rebellion, on the battle fields of Belmont and Pittsburg Landing and in the hospital at Cairo. Many a soldier yet remembers the " Angel of Cairo." She subsequently became a physician, studied in the hospitals of Europe, where she attracted considerable notice for her modesty of demeanor and her professional and surgical skill. She is now, we believe, married, and resides somewhere in New England.

Quartus Marsh was from Monroe County, N. Y. He died in 1850. He was the first settler in his immediate neighborhood. Jonathan Marsh, who died at Matteson, lately, and Edwin, who still resides there, Henry Marsh, for some time a cabinet maker in Joliet, and who got one of Deacon Beach's girls for his wife, as well as H. N. Marsh, so long known and respected in Joliet and Will County, are his sons.

Deacon Cushing, we mentioned a little back as one of the indicted. We have a little more to say about this indictment. It was obtained when the brilliant Pat. Ballingall was State's Attorney for the District, and C. C. Van Horne was the Foreman of the grand jury and complainant. There were also on the jury some who were outspoken friends of the slave; but they felt, justly, that their oaths compelled them to find a bill against an infringement of an un- just law. When the officer called early Monday morning to arrest the good Deacon, he was at his breakfast. The officer allowed him to finish, and also to attend to a duty which was as regularly observed as his morning meal-family devotions. It so happened that in the morning's regular lesson in course occurred these words : '" Whether it be right to obey God, rather than man, judge ye." When brought into court, he was allowed to give bail for his appear- ance at the next term of court. James McKee promptly volunteered to be his

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bail, and James H. Collins, of Chicago, who was then on his return from Prince- ton, where he had been to defend Owen Lovejoy, on a like charge, volunteered to defend him, and John M. Wilson also volunteered to assist. But before the next term of court, the parties complaining had got thoroughly ashamed of their course, and Ballingall entered a nol. pros. The fiery eloquence of the prose- cuting attorney and the voice of the complainant have both been long since hushed in the grave, while the good old Deacon still lives, fast ripening for that world where we may believe feeding the hungry and pouring in oil and wine into the wounds inflicted by the driver's lash, are not indictable offenses. Blessed be the man against whom no more serious charge can be brought. It is some compensation to the Deacon to have lived to see the time when such an indictment is impossible in all our land.

CHANNAHON.

In that beautiful portion of our county which lies between the Des Plaines and Du Page Rivers, and near the meeting of the waters, now included in the town of Channahon, some settlers came as early as 1832, while the Indian still cultivated corn on the bottom and fished along the streams. This was a favor- ite spot with them, and they long lingered here. Their canoes passed up and down the rivers, and in the mounds which are still distinguishable they buried their dead. Somewhere near Treat's Island an Indian was buried as late as 1835. He was placed in a sitting posture partly out of the ground, and a pen of saplings placed around him. He is supposed to have been a chief, as the Indians passing up and down always visited his grave, and left various articles upon it as tokens of respect. A little flag was also kept flying over it, which was cared for by the Treats. North of Joliet, the writer remembers to have seen the grave of an infant in the top of a tree. It consisted of two hollow slabs in which the body was placed, being fastened together and to the tree by strips of bark. Perhaps it is a misnomer to call this a grave, and why they thus disposed of an infant's body we know not, unless it was a dim reflection of the Savior's words, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." Believing that the child's spirit had gone straight to the "happy hunting fields," they placed the body as near as possible to the sky. Among the earliest settlers in Chan- nahon were Isaac Jessup, Wm. E. Peck, E. C. Fellows, H. D. Risley, Peter McCowan, Capt. Willard, Michael Morehouse, Jedediah, Walter, and E. G. Eames, Joseph N. Fryer, Russell Tryon, George Tryon, "Uncle Bont" Schermerhorn and his four sons-Peter, Jacob B., Cornelius and Isaac-and John Ward. These came in 1832-3-4. In 1835, Dr. Peter Schermerhorn, Joseph Lewis, Sam'l Lewis and Dr. Wm. Lewis, Isaac and Burke Van Alstine, Wm. Althouse and a colored gentleman for whom we have never heard any name but "Dick." Several of these settlers were representatives of the old Dutch families on the Hudson, coming from Schodack and vicinity, and, like their ancestors, knew good land when they saw it, and then settled down to stay.

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Joseph Davis and his sons came in 1836. Isaac Jessup, long a prominent citi- zen, died in 1853, at the age of 66. He, too, bore the honorable title of Dea- con, and was County Treasurer in 1843-6. His sons still perpetuate his name. A daughter of his, Mrs. E. Jessup Eames, had considerable reputation as a poetess some years ago; and another, Sarah, who died in 1863, was not altogether unknown to local fame. H. D. Risley was from Salina, N. Y., and being elected Sheriff of the county in 1840, he removed to the old county jail, where he remained four years. He was also a canal contractor in canal times. The Van Alstines are still extant and residents of the vicinity, and so is their "Nigger Dick," the same old sinner he was forty-odd years ago. There seems to be little change in him since the time he came up to attend a ball in 1836, when his ox-team got wedged so inexplicably between the old Demmond Block and the precipice in its rear, save that he has grown a little grayer. Dick has the honor of being the first, and for a, long time the only, representative of his race in Will County. J. B. Schermerhorn was County Commissioner in the years 1848-9, and Supervisor of Channahon 1854-6. Dr. Peter Schermerhorn was for some years a practicing physician in Channa- hon and vicinity, and afterward removed to Ottawa, where he died. Wm. B. . Peck, generally known as Judge Peck, having been a County Judge where he came from in the county of Columbia, State of New York, was a prominent man, something of a politician, and County Commissioner four years-1839- 42. He died in the year 1849, in the 71st year of his age. E. C. Fellows, the well-known lawyer, and the earliest lawyer in the county, came to Channa- hon at the same time and married a daughter of Judge Peck. He came to Joliet in 1835. It is but recently that he has deceased. Of his ability as a lawyer, especially as a criminal lawyer, everybody in Will County is well aware. George Tryon was Supervisor of Channahon for the years 1850-52. E. H. Jessup, one of Isaac Jessup's sons, was Supervisor in 1862, and John S. Jessup, another son, represented in part our county in the Legislature in the year 1872. He was the first victim of minority representation. J. N. Fryer has been Supervisor from 1866 down to date, and perhaps will be as long as he lives. Michael Morehouse was a native of Connecticut, born in 1791, a good, honorable and intelligent man, who died in 1876.

Dr. Knapp and George Tryon came together from Vermont, and were the first settlers in the 'part of the town where they located, now on the beautiful " wide water" made by the canal, and the favorite resort of Fourth of July picnics. The Indians were dwelling on the bottom of the Des Planes, and at a spot across the river, a little lower down, known then as the "sugar bush," in con- siderable numbers. They were under the supervision of one of old Bourbon- nie's sons, a half-breed. Seymor Treat and son had settled at the island still known by his name, in 1833. The Treats were great friends of the Indians, never refusing them food or shelter, though their supplies were not very abun- dant. The Indians held the family in high regard, and when they received

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their last annuity, they gave him $1,000 as a remembrancer, which furnished him the means to go on with the mill which he was building. He had a son and daughter. The son, was known as Dr. Treat. The mill was built at the lower end of the island. The Indians were friendly to the early settlers, and never troublesome unless they had drunk too much fire-water. They called this liquid good-na-tosh-clearly a misnomer. As the settlers were not familiar with the Indian language, they had to resort largely to the natural language of signs, at which the Indians are as expert as the deaf-mutes. Dr. Knapp tells an amusing story as to how an Indian tried to make him understand what he meant when he wanted to sell him some "ho-mo-sis-paw-quet"-that is, bee- sugar or honey. This is a story that can't be told except in pantomime, and nobody can do it justice but the doctor. If you ever see him, get him to tell it. It is the best specimen of pantomime we ever saw.

We must note the fact that in Channahon, on the southeast side of the Des Plaines, is the large plantation of Charles C. Smith, one of the sons of our old resident and Justice of the Peace, Barton Smith. We gave a little history of Charley in " Forty Years Ago." He has been Supervisor of Channahon for several years, and we wish we had his note for a thousand or two dollars. The village of Channahon was laid out by the Canal Commissioners, and was first named Swifton, after one of their number; but Judge Peck got it changed by an act of the Legislature to its present name, the significance of which we have already given.

TROUTMAN'S GROVE.

On the southeast side of the river, within the present town, but known then as Troutman's Grove, there settled, in 1831 or 1832, Joseph McCune and John Troutman ; and in 1833, Robert Thornburg and sons, one of whom, John Thornburg, still resides there.

TROY.

Up the Du Page, in the present town of Troy, there were also some settlers quite early. The first, perhaps, was Jedediah Woolley, Jr., who came in 1831 and commenced building a mill. The enterprise was interrupted by the Sac war, and completed in 1834. A man of the name of Chipman was engaged with him in the enterprise. Two men of the name of Rexford also settled there and rented Woolley's mill. John Van Riper and sons also settled there early, and a Mr. Fleming. Our well-known citizen, Carey Thornton, also settled on the Channahon road, and opened one of the finest farms in the county. It used to be a good place to stop at and eat pumpkin pie.

Josiah R. Holden, a brother of Phineas Holden, of Frankfort Settlement, was an early settler in this township, having located on Section 32, just across the Du Page, where the old Au Sable road crosses. He came in 1834, and was for some years one of our best and most reliable citizens. He now lives in Michigan with a son, who is Secretary of State. Mr. Holden and his wife were members of the old Plainfield Congregational Church, and they celebrated their

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golden wedding about four years since. They were from New Hampshire. Mr. H. is now 81.

The famous Haff farm, at the mouth of Rock Run, is also in the town of Troy. This was opened by the well-known Horace Haff, commonly called 'Squire Haff, in 1836. It was one of the best farms and he was one of the best citizens of Will County. He resided there many years, but a few years before his death, sold it and came to Joliet, where he died in November, 1865.

Coming still farther north, Andrew and Marshall King and another brother settled just west of the mound, in 1833 or 1834. The sons and daughters of these Kings are still among us. J. Q. A. King, the well-known coal dealer and a member of Barnett's Battery all through the war, is one of them. Norman Bradley was also an early settler in the same neighborhood. Directly west of Joliet, on the Rock Run, was another early settler, of the name of Colvin, from whom the grove was named.

WILMINGTON AND FORKED CREEK.

On the Kankakee River and Forked Creek, in localities which are now in- cluded in Florence, Wesley and Wilmington, there were early settlers. The earliest of these were John Frazier, Hamilton Keeney, John Williams, Robert Kilpatrick, James Kelly, James Jordan, John Howell and George Beckwith, who came as early as 1834, and perhaps some of them before. Most of these were Virginians. Joseph Hadsall and Mr. Goodwin came in 1835. These were mostly in Wesley and Florence. On the river, Peter Polly settled in 1834, at the head of the Island. Thomas Cox went from Joliet, where he was one of the earliest settlers, to the Kankakee, and laid out the town of Winches- ter, which was afterward changed to Wilmington, in 1836. He had previously made an extensive claim, in 1834, on Sections 25 and 26, including the island. He built a saw-mill, and some other mills, we believe. .

In 1835, Peter Stewart, from Amsterdam, N. Y., visited the West, selected Wilmington as his location, and moved West with his family in 1836. The writer well remembers making the acquaintance of the family while they stopped overnight at the old American Hotel. This hotel, by the way, stood on the ground now occupied by Bush's Block, where he is now writing. From that day forth our acquaintance with Mr. Stewart continued until his death in 1868, at the age of 85. From his first coming to the country, Peter Stewart was an influential and noted man. He was a native of Scotland, having been born in 1783, at Coilantagle Ford, in the parish of Callender, the spot where Scott locates the encounter between Fitz James and Roderick Dhu, when

" Ill fared it then with Roderick Dhu,

That on the ground his targe he threw."

In Scotland, he was the steward of one of the great lords of the country. On coming to America he became a lord himself. He acquired a handsome property by contracts upon the Erie Canal, near Albany. He also built the

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Auburn Theological Seminary and the Navy Yard buildings at New York. On coming to Wilmington, he built a large, fine house, far the finest in the county at that period, and even now a good one. He laid out an addition to Wilmington, and built a saw-mill on Forked Creek. He was Superintendent of Illinois & Michigan Canal after its completion. The old Stewart mansion was a most hospitable one in the early days. Uncle Peter was a man of exten- sive information, acquired by reading and intercourse with public men. He had a fine library, and his home was a delightful one, overlooking the beautiful Kankakee and Forked Creeks at their junction. Mrs. Stewart was one of the most lovely of women, and might have sat for King Lemuel's picture of the excellent woman. None who knew her have forgotten her, although she has been thirty-two years in heaven. That was a sad day to many hearts when she died. The writer has one souvenir of a visit to the Stewart mansion in 1842, a few years before her death. This is a root of that most beautiful herbaceous plant, the rose-colored spirea, which he found growing in native beauty and lux- uriance by the spring which wells up beneath the bluff on which the mansion stands. Mr. and Mrs. Stewart were mainstays in the Presbyterian Church at Wilmington, while they lived, and liberal supporters of all charitable and phil- anthropic movements. The Stewart house extended its hospitalities to the poor fugitives from Southern bondage, and was one of the stations on the underground railroad of which we have spoken. Mr. Stewart himself enjoyed the distinction of being called the President of the road. This reminds us of a story which is told of Uncle Peter. Once when in Washington, during the Presidency of James Buchanan, he happened to be riding from Washington to Baltimore in the same car with the President, and to be seated near him. A lady in the car requested Col. Stewart to exchange seats with her, saying that she wished to sit near the President. Mr. Stewart, with the bluff and hearty manner for which he was noted, says: "Madam, I am the President. "Indeed !" says the lady, " Of what are you president ?" " Of the under- ground railroad, Madam," he replied, as, with great politeness and good humor, he complied with her request. Well, he lived to see "his occupation gone !" And men who then were compelled to skulk by night through free States, or live under the driver's lash, may now vote and hold office, may go to Congress, sit in Jeff Davis's seat in the Senate and own his plantation ; and a fugitive slave is Marshal of the District of Columbia, where once there were slave pens and auction blocks. Verily the world does move ! Mr. Stewart died Sept. 28, 1868. The veteran preacher, J. G. Porter, who was sometime his Pastor, preached his funeral sermon from the appropriate text, 2d Sam., iii, 38, " Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel ?"

The settling of Peter Stewart at Wilmington was accompanied by, and perhaps the occasion of, the coming of others of his countrymen, until it became noted for its Scotch element. Among these we recall the names of Fred Stewart, his son : Daniel Stewart, his brother (who died in 1874-age

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74), Arch. J. McIntyre, Peter McIntosh, John McIntosh, David McIntosh, David Bell, Daniel McIntosh, the good old Deacon ; Andrew Whitton, a native of the Isle of Man, and his sons, John and James Whitton; John and David Thompson, and Duncan McIntyre, in 1836-37; Peter McFarlin, in 1840.

Dr. Bowen removed to Wilmington from Joliet, and also Edmund Allen, where they still live.

Wilmington is now well known on account of its water-power, manufactur- ing enterprises, adjacent coal mines and Kankakee River improvements-all of which will be noticed elsewhere in the town history. There were early settle- ments farther up the Kankakee.

UP THE KANKAKEE.

Thomas Hatton, afterward a resident of Joliet, and Richard Yates settled across the Kankakee, higher up, in the present town of Custer, as early as 1834 or 1835. Still farther up the Kankakee, there were early settlements, em- bracing some of the old Indian reservations and the French and Indian settle- ment known as Bourbonnais Grove. One of our first County Commissioners, Thomas Durham, was from Bourbonnais. Dr. Todd, a once well-known and influential resident of the county, purchased five sections of land on Rock Creek, which empties into the Kankakee, near the county line, and perhaps some might have been within the present bounds of the county. The deed was the third one on the records of Will County, as transcribed from Cook County, and is from Shaw-waw-nas-see to Hiram Todd, dated March 22, 1833, convey- ing, for the consideration of $4,000, five sections of land, a reservation, to said red gentleman, by Article 2 of a treaty made October 5, 1832, between Jona- than Jennings, John W. Davis and Marks Cume, United States Commission- ers, and the chiefs and head men of the Pottawatomies, the said land lying at the mouth of Rock Creek, and including the little Rock village. This deed was witnessed by Luther Rice and C. C. Van Horne. Mrs. Shaw-waw-nas-see did not sign this deed, but another was executed a little later which she signed (or made her totem), in token of her relinquishment of the right of dower. She rejoiced in the euphonious name of Ke-kit-o-quah. She probably is not living to set up a claim for dower on the score of defective acknowledgment. Cornelius C. Van Horne, a Justice of the Peace (then) of Cook County, took the acknowledgment. Other deeds of Indian reservations executed by Mr. " Lo " are on the county records ; but as this region has passed out of our do- main we omit all further notice of its history.

FIVE-MILE GROVE.

Some persons settled in what was known as "Five-Mile Grove," now in the town of Manhattan, quite early. The first settlers were a Mr. Stevens and Ephraim and Edward Perkins, who settled there in 1832 or 1833; Mr. Jones, in 1835, and the Rudds, in 1838. But the town being, with the slight exception of the grove, prairie and out of sight of land, did not entice many settlers until

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a later day. The Bakers, the Lawrances and the Youngs, who made the grove such a famous place for excursions, twenty years ago, did not come until 1849 or 1850; and about this time the township filled up rapidly with good settlers, many of whom are now of German nationality. We leave further notice of it to the township historian.

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The History of Will County, Illinois : containing a history of the county a directory of its real estate owners; portraits of early settlers and prominent men; general and local statistics.history of Illinois history of the Northwest, Part 22

Author: Publication date: 1878 Publisher: Chicago : Wm. Le Baron, jr. & co. Number of Pages: 980

Author:
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Chicago : Wm. Le Baron, jr. & co.
Number of Pages: 980