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 39

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 39

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HISTORY OF WILL COUNTY.

rider were submerged; the weather was piercing cold and the snow nearly two feet deep. It was night, and in his frozen clothes he rode on to his home, not knowing whether he would find his wife and children alive or dead. Upon his arrival, finding them all well and comfortable as could be expected under the circumstances, he sat down and wept like a child. But we draw a veil over the meeting, and, as the novelists say, leave it to be imagined ; to describe it is beyond the power of any who never experienced a similar meeting. Soon after the close of the Black Hawk war, he sold his claim to Comstock Hanford and removed to the west side of the Des Planes, on the bluff where George Wightman (who married Mr. Sisson's youngest daughter) now lives. The second night after his removal to this place, a prairie fire, one of those terrors to the early settlers, came well-nigh ruining him. Sixty tons of hay, standing in ricks, were burned, and to-day handfuls of the cinders can be picked up on the spot where the ricks stood. Of 170 head of sheep, they were all burned to death or injured so that they died from the effects, with the exception of six or eight ; and of forty head of cattle, many died from the scorching, and those left he was obliged to sell for a dollar or two apiece to prevent them from starving on his hands, as he had nothing left to feed them.

Such were the hardships borne by the pioneers who made this country what it is, and prepared for us homes which cannot be surpassed in any State, or in any country. And yet we frequently hear people complaining of hard times. Hard times ! Why, the present generation knows no more of hard times than, to use a homely phrase, " a hog does of holiday." The few survivors who set- tled here forty years ago or more can bear witness to the fact of hard times now and then. Mr. Sisson was elected one of the first Commissioners of Cook County, when Will, Du Page and Lake were included in Cook ; and when Will County was set off, was one of its first Commissioners, both of which facts stand as evidence of his integrity and ability. At the time of sale of the Govern- ment land, he was selected by his neighbors to look after their claims and inter- ests, and all who remember the period of " claim law," know something of the importance and peril attaching to his position. But a look at his face, or his ringing voice, assured all that with him it was not safe to trifle. When Mr. Sisson died, the Lockport Standard paid an eloquent tribute to his worth, from which we make the following extract : "His word was law, his courage has been for nearly two generations a household word; no taint of suspicion mars the soundness of his private and public character. His children simply worshiped him, and they are a unit in the expression that he was never known to do a mean thing, or set a bad example. His widow's views are tersely expressed in these few words to the writer, that he was the most upright and per- fect gentleman she ever knew; that his judgment was always clear; he knew no side but the right. Through all his apparent sternness, he was exceedingly social, and in many directions as confiding as a child, as loving as a woman; and it is no exaggeration to say that few lives are so complete in all their details

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and leave so rich a legacy to those that live after it." Cyrus Bronson, a brother-in-law to Sisson, settled on Section 10, on west side of the river, in 1834. He was born in the land of wooden nutmegs, but had lived some time in New York before removing to Illinois. He was killed by lightning in September, 1857, leaving several sons to perpetuate his name. Cyrus M. Bronson lives one and a half miles from where his father settled forty-four years ago; another son, Montraville Bronson, lives in the village of Lockport; David H. Bronson lives in McHenry County and Eliel S. Bronson lives in Dupage Township. The widow of Mr. Bronson is still living but is quite old and rather feeble. Cyrus M. Bronson, one of the sons above referred to, is quite a remarkable man and has a most tenacious memory. In fact, as pertaining to early events, and dates of particular occurrences, he is a walking encyclopedia, and we have drawn on him extensively for information contained in these pages. Nathan Hutchins settled under the bluff on the place where Fitzpatrick now lives, who bought it of Hutchins. The latter's father came with him to this country, but did not live long-was a very old man when they settled here, and died in 1835, one of the first deaths which occurred in the town. A brother of Hutchins came out in 1834, and remained two years, when both removed to the neighbor- hood of Rockford. He was a great hunter (the brother) and had but one eye, which adapted him for shooting without the trouble of having to close an eye to draw a bead. A. J. Mathewson, the present County Surveyor, came West in 1837, and was some time engaged in surveying the canal. In 1865, he was appointed by the Board of Public Works of Chicago, for deepening the Canal, and, in 1867, was engaged to make a survey of the Illinois River from La Salle to its mouth. He still resides in the village of Lockport, with an office in Joliet. William Thomas, General Superintendent of the Illinois & Michigan Canal, with headquarters at Lockport, settled in Michigan in 1836, but after a time returned to New York. In 1871, he was appointed Superintendent of the Canal which position he still holds. D. C. Baldwin settled in this township in 1834, where, after farming a number of years, sold out and removed into the village, embarking in the mercantile trade, which he still pursues. He is noted for having taught the first school in Homer Township. Horace Morse came about 1835, and is mentioned as the first tavern-keeper of the township.

William Gooding, together with the family of his father, who are also men- tioned in the history of Homer Township, came to Illinois in 1833. He had been prevented from coming earlier on account of "wars and the rumors of wars" of Black Hawk. He and his wife and infant son were the first passen- gers to come around the head of Lake Michigan with the United States mail, and arrived in Chicago in May of the year mentioned, when the metropolis of the Great Northwest was mighty in nothing but its mud and mire, and con- tained but about one hundred and fifty inhabitants besides the garrison. Three days later, they arrived in Gooding's Grove, then a part of Cook County. In 1836, he was appointed Chief Engineer of the Illinois & Michigan Canal,

E. Hanovado (DECEASED) JOLIET

THE LICHARY OF THE UITTERUITY OF ELLINOIS

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HISTORY OF WILL COUNTY.

which position he held until its completion, in 1848. He traveled over the first completed section of railway in the United States, from Albany to Sche- nectady, N. Y. The cars were something like old-style stage-coaches, and were drawn by horses. He died at his home in Lockport, in May, 1878. E. P. Farley settled in this township in 1837, but of him not much could be ascer- tained. The Hawleys settled here in 1835. The father, Lyman Hawley, set- tled near where Warren Hawley now lives, and at the time, there was not a house or cabin between his settlement and Plainfield. The elder Hawley is dead, but his son, Warren Hawley, is still alive, and one of the thrifty farmers of the country. Isaac Preston came to the settlement in 1836. He was born in New Jersey in 1792, and had lived some time in New York before coming to Illinois. He remembers to have seen his father with crape on his arm, as mourning for Gen. Washington, when the "Father of his Country " laid down his earthly life. J. B. Preston, a son of Isaac Preston, was a man of much note, and is said to have been the youngest man that ever received the office of Surveyor General. Hiram Norton was one of the most enterprising men the town of Lockport has known, and did more in his day, perhaps, for the build- ing-up of the place than any other inan ; and though he has long since gone to his reward, the evidences of his works are still seen and felt by those who sur- vive him. Col. Wright sprung from a good old Revolutionary stock, his father and grandfather both having served in the great struggle for independence, and participated in many of its battles. He came from Saratoga, N. Y., to Illinois. in 1833, and to Lockport Township in 1837, and settled in the present village of that name, on the identical spot where he now lives. He was bronght up

on the battle-ground of Stillwater, where Burgoyne received his first check, and which was the first of a series of brilliant engagements that resulted finally in the surrender of the British General and his proud army to the Continental forces under Gen. Gates. Col. Wright's father owned the farm upon which stood the house in which Gen. Frazer died. All readers of our Revolutionary history are familiar with the death of that gallant officer. One historian thus describes it, in the battle of Stillwater : "Here Arnold did an act unworthy of the glory of the well-fought battle. He ordered up twelve of his best riflemen, and pointing to Frazer, who, on horseback, with brandished sword, was gal- lantly animating his men, he said : 'See that officer. Himself is a host. Let me not see him long.' The riflemen flew to their places, and in a few moments the hero was cut down." Col. Wright says he has often seen the blood-stain on the floor of this house, where Frazer was laid, just under the window, when brought in wounded, and where he breathed his last. A few years ago, there was, says the Colonel, a pot of gold found buried in the barn upon this same farm, and is supposed to have been buried there by some of the British officers. Baker settled in the present village of Lockport in 1837, where he has ever since resided. He is a carpenter by trade, and has always followed that busi- ness, and perhaps has left his mark on as many edifices as any other man of his

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HISTORY OF WILL COUNTY.

age in Will County. There are, he says, but three men living now in the vil- lage that were here when he came, viz., A. J. Matthewson, D. C. Baldwin and Joshua Croneen. The village proper of Lockport was laid out, but there were no houses except the Canal office and perhaps a log cabin or two. In one of the latter a man had lived for a time, named Everdeen, but had moved to Bach- elor's Grove. There are some who accredit the man Everdeen as the first set- tler in Lockport Township, but we have been unable to learn anything very definite concerning him, and, from information received from other sources, are of the opinion that he was not the first settler in the town at all. He moved to Bachelor's Grove, in Cook County, but what further became of him we do not know. Selah Lanfear settled here in 1832, and was so near the line as to be hard to say whether he was in Lockport or Homer Township. He was in the block- house during the Sac war, a member of Capt. Sisson's company. He was a brother of Deacon Asa Lanfear, who settled in Homer a few years later. Jus- tin Taylor settled here in 1834, but had come out the year before, on a tour of inspection. He was at Chicago at the Indian treaty, and saw several hundred Indians start for their new hunting-grounds beyond the Father of Waters. He died in 1847. His widow married William Sanborn, and is still living. A coincidence in the family may be mentioned in the fact that they have four sons dead and four living, one daughter dead and one living. Alomon Taylor, a brother of his, came here in 1835, and settled on the farm just north of where Fitzpatrick now lives. He went to California in 1850, and died from an acci- dent received there. In 1852, his widow married Jacob Smith, and at present lives about a mile from their original settlement. Joseph Heath came from Hartford, Conn., about 1834, and settled where C. S. Allen now lives. He was a young man then, but afterward married and raised a large family of children, who have gone out in the world to do for themselves, and he has re- moved to Minooka, where he now lives, enjoying his wealth, gained by a life of honest toil. Thomas Webb also came from Connecticut, and settled where Stephen Williams now lives, in August, 1833. He had lived for a time in Ohio before coming to Illinois, and after remaining on this place about four years, moved just over the line in Dupage, where he died, in 1840. Michael

Noel was a son-in-law, and lived on the place for some time after Webb moved away, when he finally sold it to Williams, who now occupies it, as already stated. William Rogers was from Ashtabula County, Ohio, and settled near where Daggett's mill now stands, in 1832 or 1833. Mrs. John Giffin, a daughter of his, is living about one mile southwest of Lockport village. He finally moved up on the bluff, where he died, some years later. His widow afterward mar- ried John Mulligan, a man of Irish extraction, but had been raised mostly in England, and was a member of the Episcopal Church. It is said that she loved him most devotedly. He was on his way to Pike's Peak, during the gold ex- citement of 1859, when he died, and she had him brought back and interred at home. She then rented the farm and went to live with her children, in Livings-

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HISTORY OF WILL COUNTY.

ton County, where she died, about three years ago, but made the request that he should be disinterred and taken to that locality and buried before her, and she then laid by his side. Her request was complied with, and side by side they sleep. Harvey and Thomas Reed were from Kentucky ; the latter came in 1832, and the former in 1834 or 1835, and settled where William Mauer now lives. He went to California during the gold excitement of 1849-50, and to Pike's Peak during that excitement, in neither of which he seems to have amassed any great fortune, thus verifying the saying that " a rolling stone gath- ers no moss." Thomas Reed settled where D. Mallon now lives, on the West Side. Hesold out about 1858 or 1860, and removed to Iowa, where he died, a few years ago, more than 90 years of age. He was a warm-hearted Kentuckian, fond of his bitters, good-natured and jolly, but whole-souled, and generous to a fault.

James B. Marvin settled. in this township in 1834, about one mile east of the village, where he lived until his death, which occurred a few years ago. He, with Mr. Mason, mentioned more particularly in the history of Homer Town- ship, made the trip to California, overland, during the gold fever in 1849 and 1850. They were in Sacramento City when it was burned as a huge bonfire on the election of Gen. Pierce as President of the United States. A son of Marvin now lives on the homestead, and the place has never been out of pos- session of the family since its entry in 1834. Hale S. Mason first settled in Homer Township, where his history is more fully given, but has lived in Lock- port since 1846. B. B. Clarke, whose father settled in Plainfield, and lived for years in Dupage Township, where their history is given, is now a prosper- ous merchant in the village of Lockport. Gen. James Turney was from Ten- nessee and John W. Paddock from New York, the first representatives of the legal profession, and came about 1836 or 1837. Luther C. Chamberlain came from New York, but settled first in Homer Township. Dr. Chancy White was an early settler, and one of the first physicians. Joseph Haight was from the Nutmeg .State, and settled in 1834. Patrick Fitzpatrick is a son of "Ould Erin," but had resided in Canada from early youth until he came to Illinois. His first visit was in 1832, but owing to the Sac war then going on, he returned to Canada where he remained a year and a half, and came back to this section. He bought the claim of Nathan Hutchins, and settled on the bluff west of the village of Lockport, where he still lives. He is one of the few old landmarks still left in the country. When he settled here, he says there was not a cabin from his place to Plainfield, and Will County was a part of Cook. He voted at the first election held in Will County, but has forsworn politics since the defeat of Van Buren in 1840.

Dr. John F. Daggett, who has practiced medicine in Lockport and the sur- rounding country for forty years, is a native of the Green Mountains of Vermont, and came to this neighborhood in 1838. He entered the medical college at Woodstock, Vt., when but 19 years of age, and taught school through the

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HISTORY OF WILL COUNTY.

Winter to pay his course through college, from which he graduated in 1836. He married Angelina Talcott, of New York, a sister of the late Mancel Talcott, of Chicago, and of Edward B. Talcott, one of the engineers who surveyed and laid out the Illinois & Michigan Canal. He still lives in Lockport, and looks as if he was good to practice his profession forty years longer. John Bovee came from' Ohio in 1837 and settled in this township, but has been dead many years. Hon. Charles E. Boyer came from Reading, Penn., and first located in Chicago, where he embarked in the mercantile business. In 1839, he came to Lockport and opened a store, but closed it out in a short time and took a con- tract on the Canal. He went to California in 1850, and contracted to build Bear River Canal. He served a term in the State Legislature, and was a can- didate for the State Senate when he died in September, 1868. Robert Milne came from the "banks and braes" of Scotland in 1836, and stopped first in Chicago, where he bought out the first lumber merchant of the Garden City and engaged in that branch of trade. Although pretty well off in regard to . worldly wealth, it would probably take a longer purse than his to buy the lumber trade of Chicago to-day. In 1840, he engaged in contracting on the Illinios & Michigan Canal, and built five of the locks. He settled in the village in 1846, owns an excellent farm adjacent, and devotes a great deal of attention to raising . blooded cattle, and has imported some very fine animals from the old country. John Griswold came from Vermont, and settled here about 1834 or 1835, where he still lives, a prosperous farmer. Benjamin Butterfield is an early settler, one of the very early ones, and is said by some to have built the first log cabin in the township; but we are unable to vouch for the truth of this statement. He was in the block house built by Sisson in the time of the Sac war, and went to Iowa. He is said by some to have been in Homer Township, but he has been away so long that few can tell much about him now. Judge Blackstone, First Lieutenant of Sisson's company while in the blockhouse, was also a very early settler, but there is some discrepancy as to his settlement, whether it was originally in Homer or Lockport. This embraces many of the first settlers of Lockport Township up to the time when the influx became too great to keep pace with the arrivals. It may be that there are omissions of the names of many who should be mentioned as pioneers, but if so we have been unable to learn anything in regard to them. Many of them have gone to their account, and others have moved away and all trace of them lost.

As already stated, there were plenty of Indians here when the white people began to settle in the vicinity, but they were friendly, lazy, and not at all times disposed to heed that commandment forbidding us to steal. Says the "Will County Gazetteer," of 1860 : "From the observations of the first white settlers in this vicinity, it is evident that what is now Lockport had long been a favor- ite resort of the Indian tribes which had occupied this section of the country. The spreading oaks, the clear running brooks, the rapid river, all made this one of the brightest spots in this paradise of the red man. Here their graves are

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HISTORY OF WILL COUNTY.

found, their caches, or places for hiding their corn, etc., and arrow-heads, stone hatchets and other evidences of their having lived and died here. Even after the settlements by the whites commenced, the Indians often came here to spend the hunting and fishing season. Another reason why this became an important stopping-place for them was, that here was the best ford across the Des Planes River, and a crossing could be effected here in consequence of the rapid fall and numerous channels into which the river was divided in extreme high water, when it could nowhere else." But the time came when, "Lo! the poor Indian," with the star of empire, had to wend his way westward. Their old hunting- grounds have changed into broad, cultivated fields, and herds of domestic ani- mals now graze where they once chased the wild deer. Their war-whoop is no longer heard, their council-fires have gone out in the forests and few now living remember them from personal knowledge. Mrs. Wightman says she very well remembers the last Indians she saw in this settlement. She and others of her father's children were sitting on the fence eating butter and bread, when two Indians came along on their ponies, and snatched the butter and bread from their hands. Mr. Rogers, who lived in the neighborhood, had called for some- thing and witnessed their act to the children, became incensed, and seizing Mr. Sisson's horse-whip rode after the Indians and whipped them every jump for a mile or more. She was a small child at the time, but remembers the occurrence and that they were the last she ever saw in the country. Mr. Bronson says that when they took up their line of march for their new hunting-grounds beyond the Mississippi, they presented a rather sad and mournful spectacle, as they trudged along on foot in true Indian file, with heads bowed down and a melancholy and dejected cast of countenance, that might well have become the bard of Bonny Doon, when he wrote

"Farewell my friends, farewell my foes,

My peace with these, my love with those."

The first white child born in Lockport Township, is supposed to have been Orrin Runyon, who was born on the 27th of May, 1833. He lives now in Cal- ifornia. This is doubtless correct, as at that time there were but a few families in the town. The first birth on the west side of the Des Planes River, in the present limits of Lockport, was Eliel S. Bronson, a son of Cyrus Bronson, born April 23, 1835. The first marriage was that of Louisa Webb and Michael Noel, and the matrimonial knot was tied by C. C. Van Horne, a Justice of the Peace from the Hickory Creek settlement. C. M. Bronson says that upon its being reported that the wedding was to take place, and no invitations having been received by any of the neighbors, he, but a boy at the time, was dispatched to Webb's to reconnoiter, but ostensibly to borrow something, as borrowing was an every-day occurrence at that period of the country's settlement. Upon presenting himself as an Electoral Commission of one, he found the old gentleman sitting on a three- legged stool, eating a piece of the wedding cake, Van Horne riding away from the place and the new bride and bridegroom sitting on the bed looking very

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HISTORY OF WILL COUNTY.

sweet at each other, all of which seemed to indicate that the deed was done, which proved to be correct, for on entering the house he was introduced to the bride, and offered a " hunk" of the wedding cake. The Webbs were from Ohio, and Noel, it seems, had been the girl's lover before the family came West, and for two years after their removal to Illinois she neither saw nor heard from him, when finally he decided to pay her a visit, which culminated in a mar- riage, the first of which we have any record in Lockport Township. The first death was that of a maiden lady-a Miss Miner, and a sister of Dr. Miner, who lived on a part of Armstead Runyon's land. She died in the Summer of 1834, of consumption, and was buried on what is now known as the Hanford Place. Another of the early deaths was that of the father of Nathan Hutchins, who lived with his son on the west side of the Des Planes, and died in 1835. A custom prevailed in that early day of carrying all dead people to the grave, which seemed to the simple-minded settlers to show more affection for the departed than hauling them in a hearse or wagon. The Fall Mr. Hutchins died was one of almost unprecedented ague, even in this ague climate, and it was hard to find, says Mr. Bronson, four men to carry him to the grave who were not shaking with the ague. There were no grave-yards or cemeteries laid off at that time, and they carried him up on the bluff and buried him near where Fitzpatrick's barn now stands. As nearly as the spot can be designated, it is directly in front of the barn-door, where every time Fitz steps out he treads upon the sod that covers the old pioneer; and it would not be in the least sur- prising should his troubled ghost rise up sometime and confront Fitz for this apparent desecration of his lowly resting-place. The following circumstance is, perhaps, not out of place in this connection. A son of Nathan Hutchins went to Chicago with a wagon and team. He carried a load of produce to be exchanged for groceries and such goods as were needed at home. They were then living near Rockford, having moved to that section in 1836. The young man's team was found stabled by some one who recognized it, and word sent to Hutchins, who came and took it home. It had been there several days, the proprietor of the stable feeding and caring for it without knowing to whom it belonged. From that day to this, the young man has not been heard of. It is said that he had a little money, and whether he ran away or was murdered is, and will perhaps remain forever, one of the unrevealed mysteries.

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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 39

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