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 41
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PUBLIC LIBRARIES
have exercised an important influence in the mental culture of the inhabitants of the township. According to some of the early settlers, sectional jealousy was first introduced through them ; but be that as it may, their beneficial effects can scarcely be over estimated. Sectional feeling must have appeared of necessity, as the entire township became settled, and the fact that it was ushered in with the first library should count for naught in a consideration of the value of the library itself. The first one was organized in the winter of 1843, by the farmers resolving themselves into a company of stockholders. Three of them headed the list by purchasing shares to the amount of ten dollars
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DR. JOSEPH TEFFT PRESIDENT ELGIN BOARD OF TRADE.
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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
each, and others followed with smaller sums. The books were first kept at the house of S. G. Paull, Section 16, and the collection bore the name of Farmers' Library. The old records show that the books were most indust- riously read, and additions were occasionally made to their number until, in 1851, there were 264 volumes, embracing valuable works upon a variety of topics. Many of them are now in the school house, in District 7. The second library was known as the Independent Farmers' Library, and was established during the Winter following the organization of the first. It was kept at Col. Ingham's, two and a half miles from the other. The books have now become scattered.
In 1846, the first
BRICK HOUSE
in the township was built, by Silas Reynolds, on Section 10, where it is now used as a dwelling, by Millard Starr. Previous to that time, a peculiar
TRAGEDY
was enacted near Jericho, which may be mentioned, as it resulted in the death of one of the earliest settlers in that vicinity. Mrs. I. S. Fitch had taken a young and friendless girl into her family, and had cared for her as a mother until she arrived at a marriageable age, when she became the wife of Reuben Johnson, who has been mentioned as one of the early settlers near Jericho. Mrs. Johnson had occasionally shown symptoms of insanity, but no danger was apprehended from her, and when suffering from her temporary attacks she had been allowed her liberty, and had generally taken refuge with her old friend Mrs. Fitch, whose house was near her own. On the day on which the following events occurred, Mrs. Fitch was alone in her house employed about her domestic duties, when Mrs. Johnson entered in a high state of excitement. Mrs. Fitch, however, being accustomed to see her thus, continued with her work, and was busied with her back turned toward the young woman, when she crept slyly behind her with a razor, and cut her throat from ear to ear. The unfortunate lady ran to the door screaming to her son, who was at work in the field near by. He hastened to the house and, by holding the severed arteries, prevented the flow of blood until surgical aid could be obtained, but while the wound was being dressed she died. More than thirty-five years have passed since that day, and Mrs. Johnson, still a raving maniac, lives at her home in Jericho. Mrs. Fitch was buried in a field near her house, but a number of years afterward her remains were exhumed and placed in the cemetery. On raising her coffin from the grave, the attention of her son was directed to the enormous weight which it appeared to contain, and on removing the lid the body was found to be a solid mass of stone !
It was in 1847 that the delegates were chosen to form a new Constitution for the State of Illinois, but it was not until August 2, 1850, that the first town meeting, under the new Constitution adopted, met at the house of S. G. Paull to
M
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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
elect officers for Sugar Grove. Ira Fitch was chosen Moderator, and W. B. Gillett (now of Aurora), Clerk. The following officers were then elected (we give their present residence after their names; if deceased, it is also denoted):
Supervisor-E. D. Terry (Kendall County).
Town Clerk-Henry Nichols (California).
Assessor-S. S. Ingham (deceased).
Overseer of Poor-Ezekiel Mighell (Aurora).
Commissioners of Highways-Jesse McDole (deceased), Ephraim Case (Aurora), S. G. Paull (deceased).
Justices of the Peace-Ira Fitch (Aurora), Wm. Thompson (Aurora).
Constables-Charles Abbott (deceased), I. J. Sanford (Iowa).
Collector-Ira Fitch.
Supervisors of Roads-Joseph Inmann (Iowa), Ira Fitch, J. J. Denny (deceased), L. Nichols (gone West), Wm. Thompson, R. Smith (gone East), E. D. Terry, A. Casselman (Sugar Grove), S. G. Paull, L. Benjamin (Sugar , Grove), I. Barnes (deceased).
It was also voted that the town meetings be held in future at the Center School House, which was built in the Fall of 1848, and was located in District No. 7. The number of voters, as shown by the records of the first meeting, was 102.
EDUCATION
early received attention from the citizens of Sugar Grove. A number of the settlers, in the years 1835-6-7, came from New England, celebrated from a time " beyond which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary " as the. home of education and intelligence. They brought with them the ideas native- to the soil of Massachusetts and Vermont, and hence schools and teachers came with them.
The township now contains seven schools, all of which are in successful operation. One of them-as it is, no doubt, far in advance of any other dis- trict school in the State-deserves special notice. We refer to the one in Dis- trict No. 7. All of the branches usually taught in high schools and academies, with the exception of the languages, may there be pursued, if desired ; but the special aim has been to furnish a course adapted to an intelligent farming peo- ple. Its history is brief: With one of the citizens of Sugar Grove, Mr. Thomas Judd, the idea of an agricultural school had long been a favorite one .. Mr. F. H. Hall had, for a number of years, been in charge of the West Side School, in Aurora, and being possessed of a nature which led him to seek " the low of cattle and song of birds," etc., he had purchased a farm in Sugar Grove, where he was in the habit of repairing for health and recreation. The farmers. of the township, believing that Mr. Hall was the man to make a district school successful, if any one could, at the suggestion of Mr. Judd a proposition was made him to leave his position at Aurora, and he at length consented to do so
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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
if a building 36x54 feet and two stories high were furnished him, and he could be insured $150 per month.
About this time, the question of a new town house began to be agitated, the farmers from the northern part of the township desiring to have it located about 100 rods north of the location occupied by the old building, erected in 1848, while the balance of the township insisted that the former site should be retained. The contest grew warm, and a town meeting was called for a general ballot.
Mr. Judd, wishing to assist in securing his favorite scheme and at the same time prevent the perpetuation of sectional jealousy, announced a picnic for the same day, and all the township was invited. At the same time, Mrs. Snow, one of the most enthusiastic converts to the school project, extended invitations to many of the principal business men of Aurora.
The day arrived, and with it a crowd. During the entertainment, Mr. Hall presented to the assembled multitude the object of the picnic, and called for subscriptions. $1,400 were taken on the spot. This, with subsequent do- nations from residents of the township, and the district tax, swelled the sub- scriptions to $4,500.
The house was commenced in the Fall of 1875, and, with a good barn and horse shed, is paid for. Mr. Judd and L. H. Gillett subscribed $500 each, and the former contributed the land upon which the building stands, and in 1876 erected, for the accommodation of pupils coming from a distance, a hotel, at a cost of $12,000. The school is supplied with a library of 500 volumes, and excellent philsophical and chemical apparatus. The regular course of study ineludes agricultural chemistry, breeds of cattle, and all studies which pertain directly to farming. Forty teams are fastened in the stalls daily, and a major- ity of the pupils from outside of the district come a distance of ten miles. The system upon which the school is managed is probably the most successful to be found in any district school in the State, and the normal class from the institu- tion is furnishing the surrounding country with teachers, who will, it is hoped, , introduce as far as possible the same admirable methods in other districts. In nothing is reform more imperatively demanded than in the common schools of this and other States ; and any institution which has for its object, in part, the accomplishment of this end, should meet with the approbation of every intelli- gent citizen.
The assessed valuation of the school property of Sugar Grove is $9,800. The new town house was erected near the school house, in District No. 7, at a cost of about $1,500.
CHURCHES.
The only church standing wholly within the township was commenced in Jericho in May, 1855, and completed and dedicated the following Winter, at a cost of about $2,500. A subscription to the amount of about $500 was obtained from the farmers in the immediate neighborhood; from $250 to $300 from a fund
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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
procured by the Congregational Society in the East to aid weak societies in the West, and the balance was furnished by Deacon Reuben B. Johnson. The building was dedicated as Mount Prospect Free Mission Church. The Methodist Episcopal Society has occupied it part of the time, but the building has gener- ally been considered a Congregational Church. Both societies are now extinct, and no regular services have been held in the house for a number of years. It is used principally for funerals. The burying ground for the southern portion of the township lies just adjoining.
CHEESE FACTORY,
in Section 14, was built about 1865. Although a small building, a good busi- ness is done.
Sugar Grove Township furnished her full quota of soldiers for the late war, and their record was glorious in the Forty-second, Fifty-second and One Hun- dred and Twenty-fourth Regiments.
The township contains some of the best farms in the State, is well supplied with timber and water, is crossed from east to west by the Chicago & Iowa Rail- road, thus giving easy facilities of transportation for its abundant produce ; is inhabited by a wealthy and intelligent population, and is admitted to be the ban- ner township of Kane County. Its population in 1870 was 792. The assessed valuation of its property in 1876, $674,127, and the average assessed valuation of its land, $24.91 per acre.
KANEVILLE TOWNSHIP.
Kaneville, like Virgil, was one of the latest settled townships in the County. Several farms remained unsold as late as 1845, while at the public Government sale only forty acres of its unsurpassed prairie lands were disposed of. Yet Kaneville was partially populated years before.
Job Isbell, a bachelor, from Ohio, settled in the Fall of 1835, on what is now the Owen estate, erected the body of a log cabin, cut and stacked a quantity prairie hay, and returned to his home in the Buckeye State, where he died. James Isbell, his brother, who was then living in Sugar Grove Township, re- moved in the Spring of 1837, to his vacant claim, and commenced improv- ing it.
But, previous to this, the first permanent settler had established himself in the township. This man, who is still living upon his original claim, and is by no means an old man yet, is known throughout the vicinity as Amos Miner' In 1836, he resided in Wayne Co., N. Y .; his worldly possessions consisted of a wife and one small child, Rosaline, a hoe and an axe ; and finding the finan- cial outlook black, as it always is for a man in his circumstances, he determined to make a desperate move. A friend, Levi Leach, was about immigrating, with his family, to Michigan ; he accordingly cast his lot with him, traveled by way
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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
of the Erie Canal and the Lakes to Detroit, and thence by teams to a point in Calhoun County, about one hundred miles distant. After a short delay at this place, Mr. Leach went on a prospecting tour to Fox River, purchased a claim in Du Page County, and returned for his family. His representations of the climate and soil of Illinois were so favorable that Mr. Miner, who had found no inducements to remain in his present location, resolved to accompany him to his new home. But here a difficulty arose. Mr. Miner's assets were not far in excess of his liabilities, and he found it impossible to hire a passage for his family to Chicago. Mr. Leach's condition was more favorable ; he possessed some money, ox teams and goods, and, in Mr. Miner's, trouble, offered to convey Mrs. Miner and her daughter over the country with his own family. The proposal was gladly accepted. Mr. Miner found it more convenient to make the journey by way of the great lakes, and, bidding farewell to his family, walked back to Detroit, and took passage on a steamer about the middle of July, for Chicago. A voyage through the straits of Mackinaw was a dreary one then, and the ports at which the boat stopped were nearly as desolate as they had been since the creation. Ft. Machilimackinac was not materially different from the fort captured by the Indians in 1763. A number of squalid Indians lay upon the beach ; the houses were few and small, and the garrison had nothing to do but go through the daily routine of military duty, which was scarcely sufficient to keep them awake from morning till night. Further up Lake Michigan, Mr. Miner found Milwaukee, containing nothing but two or three shanties, inferior to many settlers' huts to be seen even at that day in the wilderness of Illinois. In due time, the traveler was landed at the head of the Lake, in the hamlet since known throughout the habitable world, and thence walking to Mr. Leech's claim, near Warrenville, he found no tidings of his friends, who had gone from Michigan by the more direct route. After waiting a week in anxiety for their arrival, he started on foot to meet them, and after walking eight miles, arriving within two miles of Naperville, he found the party encamped.
They had traveled through the marshes of Indiana, enduring incredible hardships ; had often been swamped and obliged to haul their loads from the mire by attaching the cattle to the hind ends of the carts; had camped in sloughs among snakes and mosquitoes, and, on reaching a point near La Porte, had been obliged to stop on account of the illness of Mrs. Miner and Mr. Leech's aged mother. After the invalids had recuperated, they had proceeded" on their way and met Mr. Miner as stated above.
Such were the hardships of thousands who settled in the Great West. It was August before the friends met, and the entire party proceeded to Mr. Leech's claim, where Mr. Miner remained until October, when a Mr. Sperry, who had taken land in Blackberry Township, called at the settlement to pur- chase a team which Mr. Leech had advertised for sale. Having concluded a bargain, and desirous of a teamster to drive one of his yoke of oxen back to Blackberry, Mr. Miner offered his services and after a tedious drive, fording the
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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY
river at Aurora, reached Mr. Sperry's partially built house, which, owing to the cracks between the logs admitting daylight from all sides, was afterward known far and wide as "Sperry's light-house."
The next day was Sunday, and Mr. Miner having heard of unclaimed land in the West, walked to the Smith, Platt and Vanatta settlements, all of which were in Blackberry Township, thence to Lone Grove, where he took up the claim, embracing a liberal strip of timber, where he now resides.
It is a peculiar circumstance, but one easily explained, that nearly all of the carlier settlers selected timber or rolling lands instead of prairie. They were Eastern men, and naturally prejudiced in favor of Eastern scenery ; and then their distance from lumber markets made it essential that there should be some wood upon their tracts with which to build their first cabins and supply them with fuel. At that time, the magnificent timber with which the groves abounded was no minor inducement. Those who have only seen Northern Illinois in its present aspect will be inclined to regard this statement with astonishment, since scarcely a tree above mediocre size can be found in an entire grove; but then, entire forests of the choicest oak and black walnut towered for a hundred feet above the surrounding prairie.
After marking his claim, Mr. Miner returned to Du Page County, where he employed himself at such odd jobs as the primitive condition of the country afforded until February, 1837, when Mr. Vanatta came to the settlement, beg- ging assistance for Mr. Lance, of Batavia, whose house had recently been de- stroyed by fire, one of his children, 7 years old, perishing in the flames. Upon his return, Mr. Miner accompanied him, walking from Mr. Vanatta's house to his own claim, wading Blackberry Creek, which had frozen and recently thawed, and cut a sufficient number of logs to build a house, sleeping upon the ground and living upon cold lunches in the meantime. In April, with the assistance of some of the Blackberry settlers, his house was raised, and on the 10th of May, 1837, his family occupied it. For two years he had no team, and was obliged to pay a man five dollars an acre for breaking the first five acres of land which he cultivated, and drive the team besides. As he had no money, he split 2,500 rails to satisfy the prairie breaker's demands ; and in the same season completed his house, fenced his land and raised a good crop of sod corn, buckwheat, beans and vegetables. His first cow was purchased four miles east of Warrenville, and paid for during the summer by working in the harvest fields for farmers in Sugar Grove. Mr. Leech signed a note with him as security. While Mr. Miner was away at work, his wife and child were left alone for a week at a time. The price paid for binding was twelve shillings a day. Thus, like Robinson Crusoe, all his comforts and luxuries came directly from his own labor. During the Summer, there was only one neighbor, James Isbell, nearer than Blackberry Township, but in the Fall, Mr. Alfred Churchill, from Batavia, N. Y., pur- chased, for fifty dollars, a claim which had been taken up by John B. Moore, who, subsequently, settled in what is now Virgil Township. Mr. Churchill was
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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
a prominent man among the early settlers ; an early Superintendent of Schools, a member of the Constitutional Convention and an actor in various responsible positions. He remained in the township until his death, in 1868. Shortly after the arrival of the Churchill family in their new home, an event of great importance, in an unsettled country, occurred at the house of Mr. Miner in the birth of a daughter, Mary, on the 27th of November, 1837. She is still living, and is now Mrs. Robert Alexander, of Campton Township.
The Summer of the following year found several other families located in the neighborhood, first of whom were the Inmans, from the State of New York, and later, Daniel Wentworth, from New Hampshire, who settled upon the bank of the creek, on a place now occupied by Silas Hayes. The McNairs were, likewise, early residents of the town.
On the 24th of February, 1838, the first marriage in the township took place, James Isbell and Sarah Moore being the couple. The bride, who was a daughter of J. B. Moore, of Virgil, died many years ago, but Mr. Isbell is still living at Batavia. John Bunker settled about this time on a claim now owned by Mr. Hoyt.
In 1839, Miss Fayetta R. Churchill-now Mrs. David Hanchett-taught. in her father's house, the first school in the township, and during several suc- ceeding Winters was the only schoolma'am in Kaneville, or Royalton, as the township was then called. Miss Churchill was, also, the first teacher in the first log school house, which stood near the center of the township, on a place now owned by Mr. Hough. The old building is now gone from the memory of the younger inhabitants, but was considered a suitable dwelling place for learn- ing in its day. It was built of logs, Messrs. Churchill, Miner and Isbell being mainly instrumental in its construction. Mr. David Hanchett made his home in the township in 1847.
Unfortunately, although Kaneville was settled by an intelligent people, and was, as already noticed, one of the later townships to be taken up, its records are far from satisfactory, from a historical point of view. The minutes of the proceedings of the Board of Trustees of Schools, which were doubtless one of the most valuable sources of information, have either been lost or destroyed, and the records of the earliest church organization are frequently indited by a gen- tleman of exceedingly emotional nature, who has made note of the spiritual status of the members rather than of the times and places of holding the meet- ings. Enough still remains, however, from the recollections of early settlers to show that a Sabbath school was commenced in the house of Mr. Bunker, previous to the formation of a church of any denomination ; that a Christian minister, by the name of Van Deuzer, delivered the first sermon in the township, at the house of Mr. Alfred Churchill, and that Rev. Augustus Conant preached at the same place later in the year. There was no regular place in the town- ship for divine worship until 1847, when the members of the Baptist Church, previously formed in Blackberry Township, began to meet in the first frame
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HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
school house in Kaneville. Mr. James Lewis, from Ohio, originally from Con- necticut, was an active member : and there were a number of communicants from several of the adjoining townships-Big Rock, Sugar Grove and Black- berry. But there had been preaching previously by the same denomination in Kaneville, when Elder Whittier officiated at the house of Mr. Bunker, October 20, 1844. Rev. Thomas Ravlin, of Kaneville, commenced his pastorate in the same church, and died,* before the expiration of a year, September 6, 1846.
During the year 1845, a preacher of the Methodist Episcopal denomination addressed a small congregation at the old school house, and afterward at Mr. Miner's residence. A number of years followed before any society erected an edifice dedicated exclusively to the worship of God. Meanwhile, various im- portant events occurred ; foremost among which must be reckoned the establish- ment of a post office, called Avon, at the house of Mr. Churchill. During the previous years, there had been no office nearer than Blackberry, but now settlers were accommodated once a week with mail brought to their own neighborhood. Mr. Churchill was both Postmaster and mail carrier from the Blackberry office. Mr. Miner went to Naperville for his first mail in 1837, a distance of over twenty-five miles.
In June, 1845, H. S. Gardner, the first blacksmith in the township, settled near its northern boundary, where he still resides. The first frame house in Kaneville was the one built by Mr. Bunker immediately after his arrival. Mr. Bunker was a very tidy and practical farmer, and an honored resident of the township in which he settled, until 1862, when he fell dead in his house. Mr. Churchill's death was equally sudden. The rights of the settlers in Kane- ville; as elsewhere in the county, were protected by claim organizations. Many were too poor at the time of the land sale to purchase the farms upon which they had made improvements, and, but for a general union between them for mutual protection, strangers might have purchased their dwellings, land and crops at the price of unimproved sections. Under the claim societies, however, such an act of injustice toward any squatter would have brought upon the offender the vengeance of the entire settlement. Attempts to defraud a claimant of his land, whether authorized by law or not, were therefore generally unsuc- cessful. But one project of this kind was not altogether a failure, and occa- sioned discord among neighbors for years. It occurred as follows: James Isbell's tract had extended over a portion of Section 16, which the law of the State had set apart, in each township, for school purposes. This section, in Kaneville, had been divided into ten and twenty-acre lots and offered for sale by the town, at low rates, in order that claimants might not lose their improvements, made before the survey of the land. Two ten-acre lots were upon Isbell's claim, and had been appraised at six and seven dollars per acre, with the understanding that in the auction sale no one should bid above those figures. But several of the neighbors of Mr. Isbell, desiring the valuable timber with which the land
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