USA > Illinois > The early history of Northern Illinois > Part 6
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The years of 1835-1836, with all of the stage- lines in operation opened a new period of settle- ment. With the routes from Peoria to Dixon, and then branching to continue serving the north- western part of the state along the Kellogg trail and its branches, and also running from Dixon to Midway and on into Chicago over the Savan- na-Fort Dearborn trail, the northern part of the state was really opened to settlers looking for a home in the west, and many took advan- tage of the opportunity given.
The broad outline of the process of settling is apparent. Let us take Ogle county as an ex-
116
PECATONICA
RIVER
BELOIT JO
FOX
RIVER
LA POINTE
WARREN?
o
OELIZABETH
ROCK
CRANE'S GROVE .O.MIOWAY
CHERRY GROVE
SAVANNE
CHAMBERS
ASOREGON
-O.ELGIN
...
C ROVE
FORT DEARBORN
Q DIXON'S FERRY
PROPHETSTOWN
... OMENDOTA
ROCK ISLAND
O LASALLE
FORT CLARK ( PEORIA)
18
LEWISTON
IdMISSISSIW
RIVER
SIONITTI
O SPRINGFIELD
THE N. I. D. C. WAGON-ROADS AS MARKED
KELLOGG TRAIL: FORT CLARK TO LA POINTE CHAMBERS' TRAIL: BUFFALO GROVE TO CHERRY GROVE + + + CRANE'S TRAIL: CRANE'S GROVE TO SAVANNA - PHELPS' TRAIL: DIXON'S FERRY TO MIDWAY - - > CRANE-PHELPS' TRAIL; CRANE'S GROVE TO FORT DEARBORN .- -- SAVANNA-FORT DEARBORN TRAIL: A COMBINATION OF CRANE'S TRAIL AND CRANE-PHELPS' TRAIL THE LEWISTON TRAIL 0000005
1
GEOGRAPHICAL MAP OF ROADS LAID OUT BY THE NORTHERN ILLINOIS DEVELOPMENT COMPANY
...
214
FREEPORT
BUFFALO GROVE
EARLY HISTORY
ample. John Phelps and Oliver Kellogg were located in what later became Ogle county, while John Dixon living in what later became Lee county, was in the future Ogle county dooryard. John Dixon at the Rock river ferry would have great influence in directing settlers up the Phelps trail through the Rock river valley and on toward Chicago along the Savanna-Fort Dearborn road. John Phelps at Oregon would pass them on and give further advice.
O. W. Kellogg at Buffalo Grove would help settlers find locations in his territory or farther west in what became Carroll county or north along the Kellogg road. Thomas Crane could send land-seekers north toward Galena or west toward Savanna or east toward Fort Dearborn.
Thinking of the territory of what was later Ogle and Winnebago counties, we note Kent set- tling Midway in 1834 and laying the foundations for what became Rockford, which now in 1948 claims to be the second largest city in the state.
Jared W. Sanford settled in what was called Bloomingville and later Byron.
In 1834, Leonard Andrus went on up the river above Dixon's ferry and explored the ter- ritory now called Grand de Tour which he set- tled in 1835. If we study the county townships, we find that most of them had at least one set- tler by the close of 1835 or 1836, and the num- ber rapidly increased during the next ten years. In some instances the first home built became
118
EARLY HISTORY
the center of a village, while in other instances, townships had only rural dwellers for even as long as twenty years.
It was several years after what was later called Flagg township, welcomed the first set- tler, that anybody built in the neighborhood of Rochelle which has become the largest city in Ogle county. Pine Rock township had its first settler in 1835. The later influx established sev- eral villages in that territory.
The history of Stephenson county is not as definite as that of Ogle county. The Galena lead- mine region crowded on what later became Stephenson county. In that territory were nu- merous miners, prospectors, explorers, hunters, adventurers, etc., who were not thinking seri- ously of establishing homes. Quite a number of these men visited this territory, searching for lead, sites for ferries or sawmills, or perhaps only curious to see what the country looked like. But there is the same pattern of settlement in both counties.
As two homes were built in Ogle county in 1829 by Chambers and Ankeney, so two were built in that year in Stephenson county by Kel- logg and Crane. The third was built after the Black Hawk war, in 1834, by William Wad- dams, who came out of the Galena territory where he had gone at an earlier date. Lyman Brewster settled in Winslow in 1834, having a ferry across the Pecatonica river, near the Wis-
119
EARLY HISTORY
consin state line. Winslow may be the oldest village or city in Stephenson county. William Baker laid out his home on the banks of the same river, December 17, 1835, building the next year, to found Freeport which has grown into one of the most prosperous cities in north- ern Illinois.
The years 1835-1837 brought a few settlers to the different parts of the county, and then the influx increased. This pattern can be applied to the other counties in this part of the state. The year 1835 is inscribed in large figures upon the territory extending all of the way from Free- port to Chicago. The stage-lines had a promi- nent place in this development. They seem to have been closely related or organized into quite a monopoly. The names of Winters, Frink and Walker run through the organizations. The year that the Chicago-Savanna stage-line was put in operation (1835) marked the coming of the first settler to nearly every town that sprang up along that line. That also marked the coming of the first setttler to Freeport. The only excep- tion I think, was Rockford where Kent settled in 1834.
The Chicago-Savanna stage-line continued until into the year of 1838 when it became ap- parent that Savanna was not destined to become a metropolis or even a county seat. Then the stages ran as before to Hunt's tavern, but from there continued on along the Pecatonica river
120
EARLY HISTORY
to make Freeport the next stop, and then went on northwest to mark the beginning of the pres- ent route 20 to Galena. The stage company or companies seemed to work in close cooperation with the Development Company.
An interesting but to-be-expected feature of the development of this region was that those early wagon-road trails marked the beginning of our prominet highways (with the kinks straightened out of course). But the wagon- roads were the surveyors also for the railroad lines. This was particularly true of the Kellogg trail. When the first Illinois Central railroad was built south from Freeport, projected to New Orleans and started from Freeport in 1853, it picked up the Kellogg trail in Crane's Grove, and followed it all of the way to La Salle. When the second line was built from Freeport west through Iowa, it followed the trail all of the way from Waddams Grove to Galena. And when later the Great Western railroad was built from Chicago west through Dunbar (South Freeport) it picked up the trail in Crane's Grove near the John Frisbie and Lacy farms, and followed it west through Van Brocklin (Bolton) Pearl City, and on by the Kellogg Grove or Black Hawk monument into Kent.
The Freeport branch of the Chicago and Northwestern railroad, also built in 1853 from Freeport to Chicago, followed the Crane's Grove-Fort Dearborn trail quite closely all of
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EARLY HISTORY
the way, seeking access to the cities and villages that had grown up along the trail.
During the years we have been writing about, the organization of Illinois was being carried forward. The first mention of the part of the state we are interested in, so far as county or- ganization is concerned, was in 1821 when a few counties in the southern tip of the state having been organized, Pike County was set up to in- clude all of the remainder of the state. Then farther north, Fulton county was organized in 1823, including the territory north of it. Then in 1825, Peoria county was organized including the territory north with Fort Clark the county seat. So when Kellogg blazed the trail from Fort Clark to La Pointe, he did not get outside of Peoria county.
In 1827, all of the territory north of Peoria county was organized into Jo Daviess county, and at this time the name of Galena was substi- tuted for La Pointe and became the county seat. When John Phelps took his canoe trip and meandered through several present counties, he did not get outside of Jo Daviess county.
During the year 1836, the state legislature "erected" in this territory the counties of Ogle, Winnebago and Whiteside. The organization had to be completed later by a vote of the cit- izens, a certain number being required. Stephen- son county was organized in 1837, and later approved by the voters.
122
NORTH
YELLOW CREEK
CRANE'S CREEK
Dotted line shows old Crane's Grove as it used to be. Much of it lay to the northwest of this map.
GREAT WESTERN
EXCRANE'S GROVE-FREEPORT WAGON-ROAD
ILLINOIS CENTRAL
RAILROAD
$
DUNBAR OR SOUTH FREEPORT
JOE SCOTT FARM
>DES
FARM
FORD BRIDGE
JOE
BROWN FARM
....
OAKDALE CAMP-GROUND
SMITH
CREEK
EUGER FARM CY FARM
.SMITH FARM
JOHN FRISBIE FARM
FIELDING WILSONY. FARM A:
GODFREY VOUGHT WAGON SHOP
CRANE'S GROVE SCHOOL
BLACKSMITH SHOP
NRY CRUSE FARM 1
NOW CRANE'S TAVERN
CRANE'S BARE
HOLLENBECK STORE AND I CRANE'S GROVE POST OFFICE
1
KELLOGG'S TRAIL
OLD CEMETARY 1 BUSKER FARM
KELLOGG'S LOOKOUT
ADAM WILSON JR. FARM
-
CRANES GROVE ARBORETUM
CRANES GROVE RAILROAD STATION
CHARLES MINER KNAPP FARM
COUNTY LINE ROAD
CRANE'S GROVE MUSEUM SOUTH
EAST CRANE'S GROVE
FREEPORT ROAD
ICHICA. GO -
ROAD
I SAVANNA
TOM WILSON FARM
CRANE'S
OF CRANE'S GROVE-FREEPORT ROAD CREEK
SETH SCOTT FARM
CRANE'S GROVE CEMETARY
RAILROAD
1
EARLY HISTORY
While Ogle county was organized in 1836, there were not enough voters in the county to approve it at the April election. A year later, April, 1837, the act was approved but did not set up Ogle county as we know it for Lee and Whiteside counties were a part of it. But in 1839, they were set off, and Ogle county became what it is today.
While the organization of the state was being perfected, the public schools were taking shape. Seemingly the first school in Stephenson county was in the Winslow Settlement taught by a Jane Goodhue. The second was the Crane's Grove school started in 1836. This was held in Crane's tavern, Crane bringing a teacher named Charles Walker from the east. Whatever ability he had as a teacher is not revealed, but he was profi- cient in the art of horse-stealing, and was sent to the state penitentiary at Alton. Other teach- ers were found. The first special building used for a school, was erected by Seth Scott who had settled in the east part of Crane's Grove in 1835. This was between the Crane's Grove Cemetery and the present Oakdale campground.
This proving too long a walk for the children, a school was resumed in Crane's cabin. It con- tinued on after Adam Wilson bought out Crane in 1841 and moved into his home. Then after Wilson's son-in-law, Godfrey Vought, a wagon- maker, had put up his buildings on the trail be- yond the Crane buildings, the school was held in
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EARLY HISTORY
the loft over the wagon-shop. The Vought build- ings, house and barn, made from stone quarried along Crane's Creek a few rods away, are still standing. The Voughts moved to Freeport, sell- ing the farm which was later known as the Petermeier farm. The teacher was Miss Adeline Holly. She and my mother were close friends, and in the early years of this century (1902 and on) Mrs. Adeline Holly Chase was a mem- ber of the Polo church of which I was the pastor. This friendship was another of the numerous windows through which I looked upon the early Crane's Grove life.
The next building that housed the school was the house built by Adam Wilson, Jr., along the Kellogg trail, a little more than a half-mile southwest of the Crane tavern. This school was held in the cellar-basement.
The first Crane's Grove school-building was erected in 1854. It was a frame building, and was started about a half mile northeast of Crane's home on the Chicago-Savanna road, about where the newly-built Illinois Central railroad, and the new Freeport-Crane's Grove East-road, crossed it, and where W. H. Hollen- beck, first county clerk, I think of Stephenson County, had built a store and postoffice. Mail- service had been discontinued in "Crane's tav- ern" long before this. There had been a neigh- borhood squabble over the location of the school with perhaps the stronger group favoring the
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EARLY HISTORY
building of it on its present location, on the Freeport-Crane's Grove west road, some forty rods due west of "Crane's tavern." Before the building was completed or at least used, a group of men came in the night with their oxen, and pulled it bodily to its present location where it ever after remained. This building was used until 1873 when the present stone school-house was erected. In 1876, at the tender age of four years, with my older brother aged six, I started my public school career here, walking the one and a half miles each way. Several vivid im- pressions remain of that early experience. The teacher, Kate Griggs, was a relative of mine, and perhaps used cookies as a bait to draw me so far from home. And the solid timber (Crane's Grove), surrounding the school-house and ex- tending to the back door of our home enticed our feet from the road, now and again.
While the particulars would differ, in rough outline the story of our school would be that of the hundreds of others that sprang up in those pioneer days all over this territory. Our ances- tors were interested in education.
The Settlement Moves Out of the Grove
I have spoken about two Freeport-Crane's Grove roads in connection with the school. Be- fore we continue with the general development of the Kellogg territory, let me speak of them as an example of what took place in hundreds of
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EARLY HISTORY
localities. Crane's Grove was not an ideal loca- tion for a public highway. It was essential for those times because the springs were there, and the ground was comparatively high. For the conditions of those days, it was the ideal place, but the ground is rough, hilly, stony, not ideal for building sites, and it was in the very heart of the large grove. While settlers were still re- luctant to build on the prairie, they were com- mencing to build in the edge of the grove, where perhaps some of the farm land would be prairie.
In 1850, two of the settlers presented a peti- tion to the county-commissioners to authorize the two roads that after a fashion had been laid out for the convenience of the people. I have seen this petition, with many other interesting papers, still in the possession of the descendants of some of the Scott family. This paper carried the signatures of F. D. Bulkley and Seth Scott, Sr. Both of these men came to the neighborhood in 1835 or in 1836 and both were prominent in early Stephenson county affairs. F. D. Bulkley had built his log house in the east edge of Crane's grove, east of the present Crane's Grove cemetery, perhaps 80 rods, where the road ends abruptly to turn north and then east to the Silver Creek town-house. The site is where the new house stands just beyond the road-termina- tion. In the east, Bulkley was a Methodist preacher. His voice having broken down, he had to stop preaching and he joined the migration
127
EARLY HISTORY
to Illinois. But he did not stop preaching. He held services in Crane's cabin, and Scott's cabin, and a building Seth Scott put up later to be used for a school and church. And when the village of Freeport came into being, Bulkley gathered the Methodist sheep out of the Freeport flock, and organized the "class" that became the pres- ent First Methodist Church. Bulkley was also an indispensable county-official. He was county- surveyor for years, and his name is mentioned many times in connection with real estate mat- ters in Freeport and Stephenson county.
Seth Scott, Sr., built his cabin in the grove where the Scott buildings, stone house and barn, still stand, a few rods west of the Illinois Cen- tral railroad, east of Oakdale campground. Some years later, Seth Scott's nephew, Joe Scott, came west and built near the present Crane's Grove Cemetery.
I presume that Frederick Bulkley did the sur- veying for the new roads. The East-road (Bail- eyville to Freeport) ran on a section-line. Start- ing with the county-line road between Stephen- son and Ogle counties, the road ran north, some two miles, paralleling the railroad, some fifteen rods to the east. This crossed the Chicago-Sa- vanna trail about a mile north of the county line. To the right was the Hollenbeck store; to the left and a little south, near the top of "The Busker Hill" was the "old cemetery"; and here the first Crane's Grove school-house was started.
128
EARLY HISTORY
After running north two miles, the road turned to the west by northwest (as it still does), crossed the railroad, went by Seth Scott's home, and on to join the other parallel road, along the north boundary of Oakdale campground, dip under the Great Western railroad and continue north into Freeport. If you will remember that old Freeport was where the Illinois Central de- pot is, you will see that the new road did not need to go very far to the west to arrive at Baker's home.
The west road leaving the county line, fol- lowed Kellog's trail instead of a section-line. It is really three-quarters of a mile west of the east-road instead of the full mile. It runs due north, some two miles as the other. Then com- ing near to Crane's Creek Ford-bridge, it turns east across the creek, then jogs north and east to join the east-road just before the Great West- ern viaduct. For years after this, there was no bridge across Crane's Creek. It was still the ford without the bridge. The trail swung away from this road not far from where it started to angle across to Kellogg's Lookout and on to Crane's Cabin. Then the trail veered to the left from the cabin, so that Godfrey Vought's home was on the wagon-road.
. Two more of the Wilson children were on this West-road. Adam Wilson, Jr., built the place where Richard Seuring now lives. And Tom Wilson built farther north, about half-way to
129
-
EARLY HISTORY
the school-house. These buildings have been abandoned for a good many years and have practically disappeared.
Starting again at the county line, my grand- father, Charles Miner Knapp, built in the corner made by the county-line road, and the West-road of Crane's Grove. A mile north was the school- house. Then came the Vought place. Following on down the road some three-fourths of a mile, we are following the Kellogg trail. But about a fourth of a mile before coming to Crane's Creek Ford, the Kellogg trail veered to the northwest, heading for Kellogg's Grove. On the trail to the west, the first home was that of John Frisbie whose descendants still occupy it. The next place was first built by a Charlie Krueger, and then became the home of the Lacy family for many years. Mrs. Dr. William Karcher grew to wom- anhood here. The next farm was that of Joe Brown, and the Browns lived there a long time. From here the trail carried on to the present poor-farm and to Van Brocklin.
With the building of the two parallel roads to Freeport, travel through the heart of Crane's Grove virtually ceased. Adam Wilson who sup- planted Thomas Crane in 1841, had been a blacksmith in Pennsylvania and carried on his trade here so that this brought some of the neighbors to the former, busy place. The old people lived on here until about 1858, when they moved in with their son Tom whose house was
130
EARLY HISTORY
on the West-road, and the Crane buildings were abandoned and left to the ravages of time.
Adam Wilson and his wife were the great- grandparents of Mrs. Thomas Nash, now resid- ing in Baileyville.
During these years of organization and the following twenty years, say through the forties and fifties, the settlement of this area continued at a rapid pace. Frequently, villages or com- munities were settled by groups of people, not from an eastern or southern state, but from countries across the ocean, so that those of us who were familiar with this region, could name English settlements, Irish settlements, German settlements, Holland settlements, etc. But all of the varieties of mankind were being melted into a unity of feeling; all rejoicing that here they were free to live as their own God-given talents directed, to build their own destinies so long as they did not trespass against their neighbor. The shackles of a restricting government had been thrown off; they were the government, organized under due processes of law, to chart their own course, protect their freedom, and this was a nation "of the people, for the people, by the people."
And yet as these years passed, ominous clouds appeared upon the horizon. They were free, but the black men were not free. This sentence was everlastingly penetrating the legislative halls, the council meetings, their individual hearts and
131
EARLY HISTORY
consciences. They were free but the black man was not free. Could "a nation endure, half slave and half free?" They were free; would they be willing that another man should have the right to own them as he owned cattle, to force them to spend their years as he did his horses, toiling for him instead of for their own families, to put them on the auction block and sell them as he did livestock? Their community, county, state were free; would they be willing that any cit- izens of Illinois should keep slaves or an outsider bring them in? These were the questions tor- menting people everywhere. When they met, in the village store, on the road, in the church- yard, at a barn-raising, ANYWHERE, they were talking about these things.
These problems and discussions were nation- wide. Session after session of the United States Congress made this matter its chief item of business. The Missouri Compromise, The Kan- sas-Nebraska Bill, the Dred Scott Decision by the Supreme Court had churned the troubled waters into whirling eddies. More and more, political lines were being sharply drawn upon this issue alone.
This was the picture when in 1858 Stephen A. Douglas seeking to continue as United States senator from Illinois and Abraham Lincoln who sought to replace him held their famous series of debates up and down our state. These de- bates and their consequences were of such tre-
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EARLY HISTORY
mendous importance that they were written about from every angle, and many histories give minute accounts of them. I have no desire to trespass upon this thoroughly-tilled soil. And the same holds for the Lincoln-Douglas debate in Freeport. One can read "Freeport's Lincoln," edited by W. T. Rawleigh, or Winston Church- hill's "The Crisis" or any one of a multitude of other books. I wish to hold quite closely to this historic debate as it has to do with the Kellogg trail and in a lesser degree with Crane's Grove.
The first debate had been held August 21, 1858, in Ottawa. The second was to be held Au- gust 27 in Freeport, and the section of Illinois we have been writing about was greatly excited. Everybody seemed determined to be there. Stephenson and Ogle counties naturally had the largest contingents ; but Lee and Whiteside and Carroll, Jo Daviess and Winnebago swelled the crowd; and from farther away, the people came afoot, on horseback, by wagon; alone or in con- siderable delegations, with banners proclaiming their allegiance. They slept out as their fathers did when they first came up the Kellogg trail. Both debaters had their partisans. But in this strongly Republican part of the state, it would seem that the Lincoln-boosters were in the ma- jority.
August 27 was the day that Abe Lincoln came up the trail for the third time. Not on horse- back perhaps as he came in 1832 because he was
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EARLY HISTORY
the captain of a company of state militia at the beginning of the Black Hawk war (riding unless he had loaned his horse to an ailing soldier) or as at the close of the war he tramped down the trail from Galena to Fort Clark. This third time he came up the trail via the Illinois Central, probably taking the train at La Salle. You will recall that the railroad followed the Kellogg trail from Crane's Grove to La Salle.
It was an exciting railroad trip, the morning of August 27. Extra coaches were added at dif- ferent towns to take care of the throngs seeking a way to get to Freeport. Distinguished political figures from widely-scattered sections of the na- tion were on the train for they knew that this was a day of decision. Prominent men who were feeling that the Illinois rail-splitter was the man of destiny were crowding upon him to give advice or consult about the great issues. A young man, Robert R. Hitt, son of a Mt. Mor- ris man to whom we have paid tribute, a man whom I knew quite well in later years, who was a newspaper reporter for The Chicago Press and Tribune was busy interviewing the distin- guished men, and taking notes.
The multitude was crowding in upon Lincoln, and he was doing his best to show an interest in all of them. But he was coming up the Kellogg trail, and the memory of some of those old ex- periences must have haunted him. As his train was coming into Dixon (old Dixon's ferry), in
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EARLY HISTORY
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