USA > Illinois > Kane County > The past and present of Kane County, Illinois : containing a history of the county a directory war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion statistics history of the Northwest etc., etc > Part 32
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A majority of the remaining American settlers in the township came from 1837 to 1845, and among them may be mentioned, in the former year, Amos Stone, from Massachusetts, now of Belle Plaine, Iowa, who located upon land in Sections 4 and 5, worked his farm by day and made shingles for a living by night, until the roofs of nearly all of his neighbors' houses were furnished ; the Bisbys, in the same year, in the western part of the township ; George Plum- mer, who settled where he now lives, in 1844; Harlow Hooker, in October, 1839; Stephen Fellows, deceased; and Robert Lincoln, deceased, on the farm now occupied by his sons.
A colony of Swedes arrived about 1852, which has since received occasional additions by new emigrations from the Scandinavian Peninsula. Among the first of this race who appeared in the township may be mentioned Charles Sam- uelson, now a resident of Elgin ; John Colson, at present with L. C. Ward, of St. Charles ; and, in 1853, Peter Lungreen and sons, August, who is also with Ward, and Swantey, who has since removed to Elgin.
One of the earliest stone houses in the township was erected by D. W. El- more, in 1841, at Fayville, and is still occupied as a dwelling. Rice Fay's
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stone house, now owned by John Keating, was put up shortly after, and stran- gers were frequently entertained there during the following years. Much his- torical and romantic interest centers around this section. Villages without a name are sometimes found by the wanderer through the earth's broad expanse, but here we find no less than three names without a village.
Shortly after Mr. Elmore's arrival, he laid out a number of lots at the bend in the river, and named the position Asylum ; a few of the lots were purchased, a post office established named Fayville, and kept, at different times, by Messrs. Fay, Nelson, Wait and Elmore, and a small saleratus factory started by Elmore & Burdick, which, however, continued in operation but a short time. The post office was discontinued, and, at a later date, another established and called Sil- ver Glen, which has met a similar fate.
During the most halcyon days of the place, which people once dreamed would arise, a stone house, which now stands in ruins, a little west of John Keating's mansion, was put up and occupied several years, for various purposes, being used at one time by Russell & Calhoun, as a blacksmith shop, and then passing into the hands of a man named Acres, whose spouse kept a low groggery therein and sold " reaming sweets that drank divinely," to the youth far and near. After making night hideous with their unholy orgies, for a number of weeks, and disturbing the slumbers of good people, the den was at length closed, and the inmates turned upon the cold world, in consequence of an unusually sanguinary drunken row, in which a young man working for Mr. Elmore was killed.
Tradition says that, after hearing of the affair, a reverend father of the Catholic Church visited the spot, and, indignant at the brutal lawlessnes of cer- tain of his flock, who had been frequent visitors at the house, cursed it in the name of his God, and no man, continues our informant, has ever inhabited it from that day to this. The roof is fallen in, and its deserted walls stand, a habitation for the owl and the bat.
"And over all there hangs a cloud of fear ; A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, ' The place is haunted !' "
The region is peculiarly interesting to an admirer of the beauties of nature. The ground is rugged on both sides of the river, which makes an abrupt curve to the west a mile above, and at this point resumes its southerly course. Sev- eral little islands darken the transparent stream, and one, the upper, is covered with a luxuriant growth of low reeds and willows ; a natural but thin covering of trees softens the rude angles in the hills, from whose rocks two noisy brooks, one above and the other below the Elmore farm, leap from successive terraces, forming sparkling cascades, on their way to the river; and the resi- dences in the vicinity-all of stone quarried from the ledges which form their adamantine foundation-present, when seen through the leafless branches of
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December, and contrasted with the shadows of the trees inverted in the still water, along the river bank, a view as pleasing, in all its outlines, as any which will be found in a journey through the country.
Far away to the north, the smoke wreaths from the manufactories of Elgin may be seen in a clear day, while the spires of St. Charles rise on the south.
The earliest saw-mill outside of the city limits was erected about 1845, by Lewis Norton, on Norton Creek. The builder left his home in the following year for the Mexican War, and but little work was ever performed in the new building.
Claim organizations were common in St. Charles previous to the land sale, and were productive of some good and some evil results. Jumping of claims was never tolerated, and records are not wanting of settlers visiting a pseudo-claim- ant en masse, and leveling his shanty to the ground, or setting fire to it. On the other hand, a great evil was done when Section 16, which the government had set apart for school purposes in each township, was sold to claimants in St. Charles for the mere pittance of ten shillings per acre, thus cheating the town out of not less than $9,600.
Schools were organized, as elsewhere in the county, long before there was any regular district organization. In 1839, a little log school house stood just inside the line of the fence now surrounding Jerome Elmore's yard. Schools were taught later in various houses within the neighborhood, for a time in an old log building on the present Foley place, in the deserted stone house and in Amos Stone's barn. But in 1857, a stone house, expressly designed for school purposes, was built in Fayville, or District 2, as it had then become, and is standing there to this day. A wood building was erected not far from the resi- dence of Harlow Hooker (District No. 3,) at a very early day, but was replaced, in 1876, by a new house, the most elegant one in the township, at a cost of $1,500. District No. 1, on the road to Elgin, on the west side of the river, contains an old wood building, valued at $600. District No. 9 has a brick building, in good condition, worth $800, built ten or twelve years ago. District No. 4 has a wood building, on the West Side, valued the same as District No. 9, and District No. 6 contains the neat white school house opposite the Widow Wheeler's place, valued at the same sum. The entire school property of the township may be estimated at $5,100.
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The assessed valuation of the township in 1877, at fifty cents on a dollar, was : Real estate, $472,836 ; personal property, $71,464.
In 1851, the cemetery, now owned by William Irwin, was laid out upon the East Side. It contains ten acres, and is beautifully located, thirty-two feet north of the corporation limits. The lots are laid out ten by twelve feet, a road, fifteen feet wide, surrounds it upon the inside of the fence, and two of the same width cross it, one from east to west, the other from north to south. The grounds are well shaded, and several beautiful monuments arise among the trees.
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The manufacturing interests of the township are confined to the products of the dairy. In the Spring of 1869, Martin Switzer opened a cheese factory near his place, on the west side of the river, and operated it until October, 1876, when it was sold to Robert Wright, and worked by him until May, 1877, and was then closed.
The Spring Brook Factory was first built and operated in 1867, by Mr. Larkin ; was then continued, with rather indifferent success, by various parties, until purchased by Newman & Thompson, who, in 1876, built a new factory upon the old site, and supplied it with all the modern improvements. It stands in the front rank among establishments of the kind, and is doing an excellent business.
The township is noted principally for grain raising and the manufacture of butter and cheese. It lies south of Elgin, north of Geneva, east of Campton Township and west of Du Page County, and is crossed on the northeast cor- ner by the Chicago & Northwestern Railway.
CITY OF ST. CHARLES.
SETTLEMENT.
Dean Ferson is now the earliest settler living in St. Charles city or town- ship. Starting with his brother Read from Weathersfield, Windsor County, and Ira and George Minard from Windham County, Vermont, he came to Chi- cago in September, 1833. After stopping a few days, Read and the Minar'ds returned, the former appearing again in Chicago in the following May, and Ira Minard in August. Shortly after Read Ferson's arrival, and during the same month, the two brothers set out for Fox River, crossed at Batavia, stayed over night with Nelson at the Grove, thence passed to Geneva, where they stopped with Daniel S. Haight, and next day, coming to St. Charles, took up the claim where the stone house owned by George Ferson now stands, on the west side of the river, and built a log shanty. There were at that time six houses in the present corporation limits, including Ferson's, wholly or partially com- pleted. First of these was the nearly finished hut belonging to one Chunn, and standing near the little run on the east side of the river. Of the owner but little is known, excepting that he came early in 1834-possibly late in 1833-and left before the county had been generally settled. The body of a log house built by a man named Crandall, from Ohio, stood near the present site of the residence of Capt. Bowman, was purchased by James Herrington, and subsequently sold to one of the Youngs. Another roofless cabin, built by a native of the Buckeye State, who had left the country and never returned to make good his settlement, stood just east of the place. recently purchased by George Minard of Gen. J. F. Farnsworth. Ephraim Perkins was located upon the East Side, just west of the George Minard place, and William Franklin had
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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
a log house upon the Bridges farm. Evan and Newton Shelby laid claim to all East St. Charles about the time of the arrival of the Ferson brothers, who assisted the former, late in May, in building his log house, which stood near the place now owned by Dr. Crawford. This was the seventh house in the future city. The Shelbys and Franklin* had left their homes in Indiana just previous to the Garton and Laughlin party, but were overtaken by them at Lockport, Indiana. Franklin's house may be considered the first permanent residence in the place, since, if there were any settlers previous to him, they never completed their dwellings, and left within a year after arriving. It may also be stated that there was not a settler within the limits of the city-with the very doubtful exception of Chunn-previous to the Spring of 1834. Franklin sold his claim early, and located upon the farm now owned by Charles B. Gray. All of these old dwellings were torn down many years ago. Ira Minard arrived with his wife in October, 1834, returned East, but came back in the following December, and lived with Read and Dean Ferson until April, 1835, when he built a cabin upon a claim where the State Insane Asylum now stands, at Elgin, and removed there. But in the following year, we find him again in St. Charles, which thenceforth became his home until his recent death. His name, however, was well known in business circles throughout Northern Illinois, and the field of his operations was never limited by any narrow town- ship bounds. He moved to a small log house upon the river bank, on the East Side, in the Spring of 1836, and about the same time purchased the part of the Shelby claim lying south of Main street, while the part north of that street, bordering upon the river and comprising about nine acres, was sold by Calvin Ward, from Massachusetts-who had obtained it from Evan Shelby-to Minard, Ferson and Hunt.
Ward had settled with his family, in the Fall of 1835, in a cabin near the position now occupied by Doyle's blacksmith shop, his purchase being the part of the Shelby claim lying north of Main street and extending from the public square to the river.
B. T. Hunt came from Massachusetts, in 1836, and is still in business in St. Charles.
The West Side was settled by Robert Moody, Gideon, Samuel and Joel Young, although claims had previously been made upon the land as above men tioned.
In May, 1835, Warren Tyler and his son Ira D., with their families, from Cayuga County, N. Y., moved to Naperville, and in the following August con- tinued their journey to St. Charles, where they settled-the former upon the claim purchased of John Hammers, a very early settler upon the East Side, where he had built a " double log house," without nails or glass; and the latter upon a tract previously taken up by a squatter named Isaac Rice. Both settle- ments were upon the extreme eastern limits of the present city.
*John M. Laughlin.
1
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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
Alexander Ferson, father of Read and Dean, came with his large family in June of the same year, and settled in the township near the present Bryant Du- rant place. Among his sons were Robert and George, now engaged in the grain business in the town.
In 1836, the settlement was further increased by the arrival of Leonard and David Howard; William G. Conklin, in July ; Joseph Sibley, John Andrus and the Bairds, all from Buffalo; Horace Bancroft and Dr. Nathan Collins, N. H. Dearborn, in the Summer, from Plymouth, N. H .: Asa Haseltine, from Ver- mont, in the Fall, and William Dickinson. Valentine Randall was also an early settler about this time.
Leonard Howard's first settlement was made at Geneva, on a claim purchased of Edward Trimble, but he was frequently in St. Charles, from the time of his arrival in Kane County ; and in 1837, having sold to Scotto Clark and purchased a claim of Gideon Young upon the West Side, he settled thereon. He now ré- sides upon the East Side, having taken a prominent part in the building up of the town. His brother is also living.
William G. Conklin also resides upon the East Side. Sibley is now in Kan- sas ; John Andrus, the Bairds, N. H. Dearborn and William Dickinson are still residents of St. Charles ; Horace Bancroft recently died in Michigan, and Ha- seltine many years ago in St. Charles.
Among the settlers, about 1837, may be mentioned James Lovell, now in De Kalb County ; Rev. N. C. Clark (deceased) ; Keyser, of pottery notoriety, and John Scott, who died during the past year (1877).
The Pennys, from Maine, were early in the town ; and John Glos, the first German settler.
1838 brought, in March, Aaron Blanchard, well known throughout the city. In June, the late S. S. Jones ; while Asael Bundy and Abel Millington came during the same year.
Dr. DeWolf came from Western Pennsylvania, in 1840.
P. J. Burchell (deceased), R. J. Haines and Judge Barry were early comers ; . while William Marshall, from England, commenced as a blacksmith in the vil- lage, in 1848, with scarcely a penny, and now owns a good farm between St. Charles and Campton.
But long ere this latter date, scores of immigrants had arrived, whose names cannot now be given ; and it becomes inconvenient to form complete lists of the settlers later than 1836.
NAME.
The town was christened Charleston,* by Minard and Ferson, but since it was afterward discovered that there was another Charleston in Coles County, a meeting was called in 1839, to re-christen the village. Various names were suggested, and many of the New Yorkers were in favor of Ithaca, while John
* From Charleston, N. H.
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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
Glos, the enterprising German already mentioned, was positive that none of his countrymen could ever be induced to immigrate to a place the name of which was cursed with a th sound, and suggested one which he considered more eupho- nious, but upon which there arose a diversity of opinion. At length, S. S. Jones having mentioned the name of "St. Charles " as a compromise, it re- ceived a majority of the votes, and St. Charles it remains.
FIRST MARRIAGE, BIRTH, BURIAL, ETC.
Dean Ferson and Prudence Ward were married at the log house of the bride's father, by the Rev. D. W. Elmore, September 14, 1836-being the first couple married in the place.
On Christmas Day, 1837, David Howard's first child was born and named Frances Christmas, in honor of the holiday. This was the first birth within the present corporate limits.
The old grave yard upon the East Side was given to the town by Ephraim and Otho W. Perkins, Minard, Ferson and Hunt, in 1838; and the first person buried there was James Wright, in the Fall of the same year.
S. S. Jones, one of the ablest men who has called St. Charles "home," was its first attorney ; was subsequently editor of the Religio-Philosophical Journal, was eminently successful both as a lawyer and a writer. but met a violent death in 1876.
The earliest physician in the town was Dr. Nathan Collins, the date of whose arrival has already been mentioned.
Several professional men appear in the new town about the same time and a little later, among them Lawyer Miller, Mr. Clark, the first resident clergy- man, Doctors G. W. Richards, Waite, DeWolf, and Crawford.
The name of Dr. Richards is now remembered by the early settlers, from the riot which his practices occasioned and which resulted in the death of him- self and one of his students. The doctor was a man of undoubted ability, but extremely independent and radical in his views. He neither feared his fellow man nor regarded their prejudices, and where it was possible to choose between two lines of action preferred to astonish and shock rather than to conciliate. He had opened a medical school at St. Charles, where it had long been rumored by many of the people that his students were possessed of hyena proclivities. At length positive proof was obtained that the body of a Mrs. Runyon, a young married lady, who had recently died near Sycamore, had been removed from the grave and taken to his dissecting table; the robbers were tracked to Rich- ards' doors, and the indignant father and husband of the deceased spread the story of the outrage throughout the northern part of DeKalb County. An armed mob, composed of some of the most respectable citizens of that county, joined by a delegation from Geneva, swelling the ranks to about three hundred, marched to the doctor's residence, formed in the street in line of battle, and appointed a committee to wait upon him and demand the body. They were
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not only refused but treated with the utmost contempt. Shots were exchanged ; John Rood, one of the doctor's students, was mortally wounded through the body, and Richards was so iujured by a ball through one of his lungs that he died, in Dubuque, four years later, from its effects. There has been some diver- sity of statement regarding the person responsible for the first shot, but it is the general belief that it was fired from the house. After these warlike meas- ures, it was promised that the body should be given up to the friends of the deceased. A number of the students and others were despatched to remove it from the place where it had been secreted and it was delivered to the relatives at a designated spot between St. Charles and Geneva. The school was closed, and the young student who was wounded died a few days later.
EARLY DWELLINGS AND INSTITUTIONS.
A company under the name of Minard, Ferson & Hunt was formed in 1836, and laid the foundation of the new town. A store* built by them in the Spring of the year, where Minard & Osgood's Block now stands, was the first frame building in the place. During the same season, the company built a dam across the river, and erected a saw-mill on the East Side, just above where the ruins of the carding mill now stand. The old building remained there a number of years, but was taken down about 1850. The earliest frame dwelling house was erected by N. H. Dearborn, just opposite the present site of the bank. The building is still standing, and used as a barn. Minard, Ferson & Hunt's old store is also in existence.
In 1841, the first brick dwelling in the place was built by B. T. Hunt, from a kiln of brick manufactured by John Penny in the public square, upon the East Side.
The earliest hotel had been raised four years previous, by David Howard, and, with an addition upon the west end, was known in later years as the the St. Charles Hotel, and kept by the late P. J. Burchell. William Knight kept tavern in it for a time, and was followed by B. T. Hunt, who completed and dedicated it on the 4th of July, 1838, by the first public ball in St. Charles.
The Western Enterprise and Franklin Houses were built about 1840. The former, by James Mead, is now used as a barn by Edgar Dunning ; the latter, a brick building, is standing upon the West Side.
The Mallory House, formerly the Howard House, was built by Leonard Howard, in 1848, and, having been in the possession of various parties, is now kept by B. D. Mallory. It is a brick building, of convenient dimensions.
The intelligence of the early settlers in this city is denoted by the circum- stance that one of the first schools in the county was taught there in the Fall and Winter of 1835-36. The building was Hammer's old log house, then owned by Warren Tyler, and the teacher was Prudence Ward, now Mrs. Dean Ferson.
* Thomas E. Dodge was the builder.
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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
A little slab school house was built in the Winter of 1836-37, on Pierce & Adams' corner, and, in 1839, the citizens raised by subscription a sufficient fund to build a single-story frame school house on Lot 5, Block 23, just west of the Universalist Church, and hired as their first pedagogue a young man named Knox, who had been clerk in the store of Minard, Ferson & Hunt. While employed in his new vocation, Mr. Knox died. Other teachers took his place, and schools were continued during the following years until the build- ing became inconvenient. Several successive private or public schools were then opened-one in the basement of the Methodist Church, another in the Universalist, and others in the Baptist-and in this manner education was obtained under difficulties, until 1854-55, when the Public School building was put up on the West Side. Two years later, the one on the East Side was erected. Both are of brick, large and convenient. The former, in District No. 8, is valued at $16,000; the latter, in District No. 7, is val- ued at $15,000.
Some difficulty was experienced by the early settlers in obtaining a post office, as St. Charles was not upon any regular mail route. It was at length voted, however, to obtain the mail from Elgin, at the expense of the citizens. The first Postmaster, Horace Bancroft, was appointed in 1837, and brought the first mail from Elgin in his pocket handkerchief. His office stood upon the present site of Mckeever's store, and was built by Leonard Howard. The Postmasters who followed were, in their order of succession, C. A. Brooks, P. J. Burchill, J. T. Durant, P. C. Simmons, Albert Hayden and A. V. Lill; the latter, one of the early settlers, was appointed in 1861, and has retained his position, with honor, for seventeen years.
Bancroft was also the first blacksmith in the village, and made the irons for the first saw-mill. which was in operation in November, 1836. He likewise had an ear for other melody than anvil choruses and brought the first piano to the place.
Abel Millington was a man of more than ordinary energy, and had no sooner settled in the growing town than he commenced, in the Spring of 1838, the erection of one of the most essential elements to its success, a grist-mill, upon the West Side, upon a claim purchased of Gideon Young. The foundation was laid by Leonard Howard. Unfortunately for the town, Mr. Millington died in the Fall of the same year. The mill is now owned by R. J. Haines.
The original plat of the town was surveyed and laid out for *Ira Minard, Read Ferson, Calvin Ward and Gideon Young, in the Spring of 1837, by Mark W. Fletcher, County Surveyor. Numerous additions have since been made upon both sides of the river.
The earlier settlers of the town crossed the river by means of a ferry ; but in the Summer of 1837, business had increased to such an extent that a bridge was deemed a necessity, and accordingly a wooden structure was raised, at a
* We give the names of the proprietors as they are given upon the plat in the Recorder's Office.
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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
cost of about $700. It was subsequently carried away, and several have since been built in the same place, one of which was put up about 1857, at a cost of $5,000, and was replaced, at a cost of $8,500, by the elegant iron one which still spans the river.
About 1838, Joseph Keyser, from Pennsylvania, who arrived in the town the previous year, started a pottery, and commenced the manufacture of brown earthenware, on the south side of the lot now owned by J. S. Christian. But the business not proving as remunerative as he had expected, he loaded his goods into a small boat, and, with his family, sailed down the river, and was seen in St. Charles no more.
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