USA > Illinois > DeKalb County > The voters and tax-payers of De Kalb County, Illinois; containing, also, a biographical directory a history of the county and state, map of the county, a business directory, an abstract of every-day laws > Part 9
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635,964
7.8
Teheran.
120,000
Belgium.
5,021,300
1869
11,373
441.5
Brussels.
314,100
Bavaria ..
4,861,400
1871
29,292
165.9
Mnnieli
169.500
Portugal.
3,995,200
1868
34,494
115.8
Lisbon.
224,063
Holland
3,688,300
1870
12,680
290.9
Hague ..
90,100
ew Grenada.
3,000,000
1870
357,157
8.4
Bogota ..
15,000
Chili
2,000,000
1869
132.616
15.1
Santiago.
115,400
Switzerland.
2,669.100
1870
15,992
166.9
Berne.
36,000
Peru
2,500,000
1871
471.838
5.3
Lima ..
160,100
Bolivia.
497,321
4.
Chuquisaca
25.000
Wurtemburg
1,818,500
1871
7,533
241.4
Stuttgart
91,600
Denmark
1,784.700
1870
14,753
120.9
Copenhagen
162,042
Venezuela.
1,500,000
368,238
Caraccas
47,000
Baden.
1,461,400
1871
5,912
247.
Carlsruhe
36,600
tireece.
1,457.900
1870
19,353
75.3
Athens ...
43, 100
Guatemala
1,180,000
1871
40,879
28.9
Guatemala
40,000
Ecuador.
1,300,000
1871
63,787
15.6
Asuncion.
48,000
Hesse
823,138
2,969
277.
Darmstadt
30.000
Liberia .
718,000
1871
9,576
74.9
Monrovia .
3,000
San Salvador
600,000
1871
7,335
81.8
Sal Salvador
15.000
Hayti ..
572,000
10,205
56.
Port au Prince.
20.000
Nicaragua.
350,000
1871
58,171
Managua ...
10,000
Uruguay.
300,000
1871
66,722
6.5
Monte Video.
44.500
Honduras
350,000
1871
47.092
7.4
Comayagua
12,000
Sin Domingo.
136,000
17,827
7.6
San Domingo.
20,000
Costa Rica
165 000
1870
21,505
7. 7
San Jose ..
2,000
Il twait.
62 950
7,633
80.
Honolulu
7,633
Illinois
55,410 2,539,891
5,904
Indiana.
33,809 1,680,637
3,529
Territories.
1,606
Minnesota.
83,531
598,429 1,612
Nevada ..
112,090
42,491
52,540
593
Washington.
69,944
23,955
North Carolina ..
50,704 1,071,361
1,190
Argentine Republic.
1,812,000
1869
871,848
2.1
Buenos Ayres.
177 800
218,928
5.9
Quito
70,000
Paraguay.
1,000,000
States.
Alabama
POPULATION.
R. R.
1870.
1875.
2,000,000
4.2
75.995
828
1,760
84
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION.
POPULATION OF ILLINOIS, BY COUNTIES.
AGOREGATE.
COUNTIES.
1870.
1860.
1850.
1840.
1830.
1820.
Adams
56362
41323
26508
14476
2186
Alexander.
10564
4707
2484
3313
1390
626
Bond
13152
9815
61.44
5060
3124
2931
Buone
12942
11678
7624
1705
Brown
I2205
9938
7198
4183
Bureau
32415
26426
8841
367
Calhoun
6562
5144
3231
1741
1092
Carroll
16705
II733
4586
1023
Cass
11580
II325
7253
2981
Champaign
32737
14629
26.49
1475
Christian
20363
10492
3203
1878
Clark
18719
14987
9532
7453
3940
931
Clay
15875
9336
4289
3228
755
Clinton
16285
10941
5139
3718
2330
Coles
25235
14203
9335
9616
Cook
349966
144954
43385
IO201
Crawford.
13889
11551
7135
4422
3117
2999
Cumberland
I2223
8311
3718
De Kalb.
23265
I9086
7540
1697
De Witt
14768
10820
5002
3247
Douglas
13484
7140
Du Page.
16685
1470I
9290
3535
Edgar
21450
16925
10692
8225
4071
Edwards
7565
5454
3524
3070
1649
3444
Effingham
15653
7816
3799
1675
Fayette
19638
11189
8075
6328
2704
Ford
9103
1979
Franklin
12652
9393
5681
3682
4083
1763
Fulton
38291
33338
22508
13142
1841
Gallatin
III34
8055
5448
10760
7405
3155
Greene
20277
16093
I2429
1195I
7674
Grundy
14938
10379
3023
Hamilton
13014
9915
6362
3945
2616
Hancock
35935
29061
14652
99.16
483
Ilardin
5113
3759
2887
1378
Ilenderson
I2582
9501
4612
Henry
35506
20660
3807
I260
41
Iroquois
25782
I2325
4149
1695
Jackson
19634
9589
5862
3566
I828
1542
Jasper
II234
8364
3220
1472
Jefferson
17864
12965
8109
5762
2555
691
Jersey
15054
I2051
7354
4535
Jo Daviess
27820
27325
18604
6180
2III
Johnson
II248
9342
4114
3626
1596
843
Kane.
39091
30062
16703
6501
Kankakee
24352
15412
Knox
39522
28663
I3279
7060
274
Lake
21014
IS257
I4226
2634
La Salle
60792
48332
17815
9348
Lawrence
I2533
9214
6121
7092
3668
Lee
2717I
17651
5292
2035
Livingston
31471
11637
I553
759
Logan
23053
I4272
5128
2333
1
1
I
1
I
12399
13074
7730
1
1
1
I
.
I
1
1
I
I
I
I
I
1
L
1
I
1
1
I
I
1
1
I
1
Kendall
1
*23
85
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION.
POPULATION OF ILLINOIS-CONCLUDED.
AGGREGATE.
COUNTIES.
1870.
1860.
1850.
1840.
1830.
1820.
Macon
26481
13738
3988
3039
II22
Macoupin
32726
24602
I2355
7926
1990
Madison
44131
31251
20441
14433
622I
I3550
Marion
20622
I2739
6720
4742
2125
Marshall
16950
I3437
5180
1849
Mason
16184
10931
5921
Massac
9581
6213
4092
McDonough
26509
20069
7616
5308
(6)
Mc Henry
23762
22089
I4978
2578
McLean
53988
28772
10163
6565
Menard
II735
9584
6349
4431
Mercer
18769
15042
5246
2352
26
Monroe.
I2982
I2832
7679
448 I
2000
1516
Montgomery
25314
I3979
6277
4490
2953
Morgan
28463
22II2
16064
19547
12714
Moultrie
10385
6385
3234
Ogle
27492
22888
10020
3479
Peoria
47540
36601
I7547
6153
(c)
Perry
I3723
9552
5278
3222
1215
Piatt
10953
6127
1606
Pike.
30768
27249
18819
II728
2396
Pope
II437
6742
3975
4094
3316
2610
Pulaski
S752
3943
2265
Putnam
62So
5587
3924
2131
CI310
Randolph
20859
17205
II079
7944
4429
3492
Richland
I2803
97II
4012
2610
Saline
12714
933I
5588
Sangamon
46352
32274
19228
14716
12960
Schuyler
17419
I4684
10573
6972
b2959
Scott
10530
9069
7914
6215
Shelby
25476
14613
7807
6659
2972
Stark
1075I
9004
3710
1573
*5
St. Clair
51068
37694
20180
13631
7078
5248
Stephenson
30608
25112
II666
2800
Tazewell
27903
21470
I2052
7221
4716
Union
16518
III8I
7615
5524
3239
2362
Vermilion
30388
19800
II492
9303
5836
Wabash
8841
7313
4690
4240
2710
Warr n
23174
18336
8176
6739
308
Washington
I7599
13731
6953
4810
1675
1517
Wayne
19758
I2223
6825
5133
2553
III4
White
16846
I2403
8925
7919
609I
4828
Whitesides
27503
18737
5361
2514
Will
43013
29321
16703
10167
Williamson
17329
I2205
7216
4457
Winnebago
2930I
24491
II773
4609
Woodford
18956
I3282
4415
Total
2539891
1711951
851470
476183
157445
55162
L
1
I
1
I
1
1
J
1
I
1
I
I
J
1
I
Rock Island
29783
21005
6937
*21
3
*19
1
1
HISTORY OF DEKALB COUNTY.
This county is named after Baron DeKalb, a distinguished French officer, who came to this country with LaFayette, and fell in the battle of Camden during the Revolutionary War. He was eminently worthy the perpetuation of his name and memory in so many of the towns and counties of different States ; for he was a noble friend of liberty and the rights of man. Born in 1732, in Alsace, then a German province of France, he entered the French army in which he rose to the rank of brigadier general and Knight of the Order of Merit. The French gov- ernment sent him as a secret agent to the American colonies in 1762. While on this visit he learned to love the free spirit of the American people, which even then foreshadowed the Declaration of Independ- ence ; and when the War of the Revolution broke out he proceeded at once to offer his services to Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, our min- isters at that time at the French Court. He was accepted, and the fol- lowing year sailed with LaFayette and ten other French officers to this country.
Congress, September 15, 1777, appointed him a major general. He soon joined the main army under Washington at Philadelphia, and during the two following years served with honor and distinction in the cam- paigns in Maryland and New Jersey.
The most arduous campaign of the war, in which he was engaged, was that of his southern march to reinforce Major Lincoln at Charleston, South Carolina. In 1780, this post was threatened by the British, and Gen. DeKalb was chosen by Washington, with the approbation of Con- gress, to march with a force for its relief across the wilderness of the Carolinas. The force was conveyed to Petersburg, Virginia, by boats, and thence commenced its weary and destitute march across the country. A few poor and scattering settlers were all their dependence ; for the commissaries had neither stores nor credit. They were obliged to collect their own supplies by impressing lean cattle from the canebrakes, and Indian corn, the only grain which the country produced.
At Deer River, DeKalb was overtaken by Gen. Gates, who had been appointed by Congress to the command of the Southern Department, and the army moved on through a barren and disaffected country towards Camden. It had by this time been augmented by reinforcements from the Carolinas and Virginia, so that on its approach to Camden it num- bered nearly 6,000 men ; but they were mostly raw militia, weakened by disease and their arduous marches, having to subsist on unripe peaches and green corn instead of bread. The army of Lord Cornwallis, though considerably less in numbers, were veterans, and so situated that defeat
87
HISTORY OF DEKALB COUNTY.
would have been their destruction. Both armies moved forward on the night of the 6th of August-Cornwallis with the intent to attack and surprise Gates, the latter intending to occupy a position nearer Camden. The advance of the two armies encountered each other unexpectedly in the woods. A council of war was immediately called ; DeKalb cautioned Gates against a general attack, and recommended that the army should fall back to a more favorable position. Gates scorned the advice. Said he : "I would not give a penny to be insured a breakfast in Camden to-day with Lord Cornwallis a captured prisoner at my table." Vain conceit. The rash Gates insinuated that the caution of DeKalb was occasioned by fear. " Well, sir," said DeKalb, "a few hours will prove who is brave."
The British rushed with charged bayonets on Gates' center and left, when his troops broke and fled, leaving their guns on the ground. Gates went with them, and did not cease his flight till he reached Charlotte, eighty miles from the field of battle. The brave DeKalb, at the head of the right wing, manfully stood his ground, and contended against the whole British army more than an hour. Hundreds of his devoted troops had fallen around him, when, at last, he fell, pierced by seven bayonet wounds. At the entreaty of his aid, the British officers interposed to prevent his immediate destruction, but he survived only a few hours. He died with these words to a British officer who kindly sympathized with him in his last moments :
"I thank you for your generous sympathy, but I die the death I have always prayed for-the death of a soldier fighting for the rights of man ; and though I fight no more in this world, I trust I may still be of some service to the cause of freedom."
Many years after Gen. Washington visited the grave of the departed hero at Camden, and after gazing sadly awhile, exclaimed : "So here lies the brave DeKalb ! the generous stranger who came from a distant land to fight our battles, and water with his blood the tree of liberty."
Such is a brief sketch of the brave soldier who gave his life to the cause of human liberty, and whose name is perpetuated in DeKalb County and one of its principal towns.
PHYSICAL FEATURES.
DeKalb County is within a few hours' ride by rail of the city of Chicago; its county seat, Sycamore, being about sixty miles distant. The county is traversed by four lines of railway : the Chicago & Pacific, which crosses it from east to west on its northern tier of townships; the Chi- cago & Northwestern, which crosses it in the same direction near the center ; the Chicago & Iowa, which crosses it east and west through the second range of townships from the south ; and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, which passes diagonally in a southwestern direction across the southeast corner, extending across the township of Somonauk.
Of course, the county has unusual railroad facilities ; and the con- struction and operation of these great lines have had a wonderful influ- ence in the development of the country along them from a wilderness to the garden of fertility, culture and beauty which it now is. and of crowd- ing it with a wealthy, prosperous and enlightened population.
88
HISTORY OF DEKALB COUNTY.
The surface of DeKalb County has but few peculiar and distine- tive features. It has no great rivers, no elevated peaks, no deep and narrow valleys ; but is only a parallelogram of rich, rolling prairie, dotted with a few groves. and watered by a few small streams. It is eighteen miles broad, and thirty-six miles long. The county occupies the elevated ground between the Fox and Rock Rivers. These streams are noted for their purity and beauty. The Fox River empties into the Illinois River, at Ottawa, and the Rock into the Mississippi River, at Rock Island.
The central portion of the county contains but little timber, and only few running streams. There is more timber and water in the north- ern and southern parts of the county. The largest stream in the county is the south branch of the Kishwaukee River. In the early history of the county, this stream was called the Sycamore River. This stream heads in the town of Shabbona, and flows through the towns of Milan, Afton, De Kalb, Mayfield, Sycamore, Genoa, Kingston and Franklin ; and emp- ties into the Rock River, in Winnebago County. It has several branches, one of which heads in the town of Virgil, Kane County, and flows through Cortland and Sycamore Townships, and enters the main branch in the town of Mayfield. There are several small creeks that flow through the northern part of the county, which are valuable to the farms which they water. Along the banks of the Kishwaukee, in the northern half of the county, stretches one continuous forest, composed principally of white, red and burr oak trees, and some maple, butternut, black walnut and hickory. This grove furnishes the north half of the county with fuel and fencing timber. The rolling prairies occupy almost the entire surface of the central portion of the county. The early settlers of the county made their claims in close proximity to the timber and water, and could hardly believe that the distant prairies would ever serve any other pur- pose than that of a large range for stock. They felt sure that no farmer could live there, so far away from the timber. They little thought that many of them would live to see it all settled and occupied by man. Some of the wealthiest farmers and the most productive farms of the county are now found on the prairies. The central portion of the county has but little water, except that which is furnished by sloughs or swamps, which always connect, one with the other, until they form brooklets, which flow north and south, and ultimately become our larger creeks. The southern portions of the county, like the northern, are better watered and timbered than those towns which occupy the center. The towns of Paw Paw and Shabbona are watered by the Big Indian Creek, while Shabbona Grove and Ross Grove furnish its timber. The Little Indian Creek waters the towns of Vietor, Paw Paw and Clinton ; while Som- onauk and Squaw Grove Townships are watered by Somonauk Creek ; and along this stream will be found timber enough to supply the wants of the surrounding country. Hardly a ledge of rocks pierces the surface in any part of the county. Some limestone is found in Kingston, Frank- lin and Afton Townships. The whole county is unfortunately destitute of rock suitable for building purposes.
But it is easily transported on the lines of railway, which run to all the principal towns. The county is more than compensated by other advantages, which constitute the source of its wealth and prosperity. Its advantages for agriculture and stock-raising are unsurpassed, and it stands on the record as the banner dairy county of the State.
89
HISTORY OF DEKALB COUNTY.
INDIANS OF THE COUNTRY.
Prior to the Spring of 1835, the territory at present embraced in DeKalb County was occupied by the Pottawattamie tribe of Indians. Their territory extended west to Rock River, which stream divided them from the Winnebagos. These two tribes spoke different dialects, and emigrated from different parts of the continent. The Pottawattamies spoke the Algonquin language, which was originally the tongue of most of the tribes north of the Potomac and east of the Mississippi. This tribe came originally from Canada. In 1835, there were villages of them near Ohio Grove ; on section 3, in the township of Cortland ; in Kingston, on section 21 ; at Coltonville ; a large settlement at Shabbona Grove, under the good chief, Shabbona ; and another at Paw Paw Grove, under a chief of yet higher rank, called Waubansie. There were some forty wigwams at Coltonville, but they were not all inhabited in 1835. Their manners and customs, as observed by the white settlers, were somewhat as follows :
The settlers found them making maple sugar from the adjoining grove. Their sap-buckets were hewn troughs and the backs of turtles. In their manner of manufacturing sugar and syrup, they were very filthy.
Most of them buried their dead in shallow graves, depositing with them their guns, bows and arrows, and various trinkets. A space was selected upon some conspicuous mound. and a square about six feet by ten fenced in by high palisades. Within this the body was placed, braced up in a sitting posture, with knives, rifle, blankets, pipe, and a good supply of tobacco, and all were thus left to molder and decay.
At the first settlement of the country, a chief of the Pottawattamies. whose name has not been preserved, was enshrined in the above manner on the farm of Calvin Colton, in Mayfield. His skeleton, with the bullet in it which caused his death, was afterwards obtained by Dr. Richards, of the St. Charles Medical School.
They disposed of the bodies of their dead children by .covering them with bark, binding them with withes in halves of hollow logs, and sus- pending them in the horizontal branches of trees. Calvin Colton reports that as late as 1839, when he moved to his location at Coltonville, there were as many as fifty pappooses thus suspended in the grove adjoining his residence.
The Indians cultivated small patches of corn upon the bottom lands near the streams and on the borders of the groves. The squaws did all the work. They kept their seed corn by stringing it upon poles and hang- ing it in little bark-lined cellars in the ground. These deposits were always sacred, and no Indian, however nearly starved, would ever touch them.
Their chief reliance for food was upon the game-deer, rabbits, woodchuck, etc., which were then plentiful in the country. The buffalo had disappeared, but many of their bones were yet to be found. Near the present town line between Clinton and Shabbona, could be seen twenty years ago, around a living spring which there bubbled up when all the rest of the wide prairie was dry, the bones and skulls of hundreds of buffalo. It is supposed that these were the bones of the old and feeble which had been driven thither by the drought for drink, and died at the spring.
-
A
90
HISTORY OF DEKALB COUNTY.
Shabbona, the old chief, used to say that about the year 1810 there was an unusually severe winter, during which multitudes of the Indians perished, and the buffalo all died and were never afterwards seen in this section.
The village of Shabbona, at Shabbona Grove, was the most noted Pottawattamie settlement in the county. Here lived the "good old chief Shabbona," so noted in the early annals of the country. Here was held many a council of peace and of war, during those border conflicts which agitated the country far beyond this remote wilderness, but in which the savages were prominent actors. From this place, after the surrender of General Hull, Fort Mackinaw, and the Chicago massacre, Shabbona and his braves, accompanied by Waubansie and his warriors, went to join the forces of Tecumseh and the Prophet, in aid of the British arms against the United States, in the war of 1812.
It having been noised abroad, in the Spring of 1835, that the Indians were about to be removed west of the Mississippi, no further attempt was made to restrain the immigration of the whites, and they poured into the country in great numbers.
EARLY SETTLEMENT.
Probably few, if any, white men ever visited the territory of DeKalb County till about the time of Major Stillman's defeat by the Indians, on a branch of the Kishwaukee, near the northwest corner of the county, during the Blackhawk War, in 1832.
In 1836, the county of Kane, embracing the entire territory now included in DeKalb, was organized. Capt. Eli Barnes, representing the interests of the Kishwaukee country, was re-elected one of the County Commissioners ; but the settlers in the Kishwaukee country still felt that they were too far from a county seat. A company of capitalists, known afterwards as the New York Company, had already laid out a town on the east fork of the southi branch of the Kishwaukee River, between the Nor- wegian and Big Grove.
In 1834, a mail route from Chicago to John Dixon's residence, on the Rock River, was established, which crossed the southern end of DeKalb County, and during the Summer a log hut was built for a station, on this line, at the crossing of Somonauk Creek. This was probably the first habitation of a white man erected in the county ; but was abandoned in the Fall. Wm. Sebree seems to have been the first settler, and became a permanent resident of the county.
It was in the Spring of 1835, when the treaty with the Indians which followed the Blackhawk war, had bound them to leave this country for the wilderness beyond the great Father of Waters, that the first consid- erable body of white settlers came into the county. This section of country was then known as the Kishwaukee country, and was a part of the great county of LaSalle ; which extended from the Illinois River, on the south to the line of Wisconsin Territory on the north, and on the east to Cook County. A commission was procured from Ottawa, then as now the county seat, for the election of two Justices of the Peace, and in June, 1835, an election was held, and Stephen Mowry and Joseph Collier were chosen Justices - the first public officers ever elected in this section of
91
HISTORY OF DEKALB COUNTY.
country. In the year 1836, but few settlers came in. The timbered lands of the county had nearly all been claimed during the previous year, and those who were not able or willing to pay the prices demanded by claimants, were forced to go further west.
In 1836, the first house was built at Shabbona Grove, by Edmund Town, assisted by David Smith. While building this house, they lived in the deserted wigwams of the Indians, who had gone west about three months before. The Indians never after made a permanent home at this place, but came and went every year or two. During this time, many whites had been attracted to the grove, and became settlers at this place, and were on friendly terms with the Indians, and ever since that time, the country surrounding the grove has improved very fast. At a general election, held in August, 1836, Henry Madden, who resided in what was called the Brush Point settlement, in the present town of Mayfield, was elected as Representative to the State Legislature. His district took in a large amount of territory, but a very small population. Most of the population, at this time, was in the southern part of the state, excepting the settlements at Ottawa, LaSalle, Joliet and Galena. Chicago, at that time, consisted only of a few log houses, clustered around Fort Dearborn, on the banks of the Chicago River.
Most of the details of the early settlement in various parts of the county have been purposely omitted here and embodied in the different town histories.
CLAIM ASSOCIATION.
Before the lands of the county came into market, and while multi- tudes of land-hunters were rushing in and seizing upon claims, each eager to secure the best, and not over-scrupulous of the rights of their neigh- bors, it became necessary that some measures should be adopted for the protection of the rights of all concerned ; and in this necessity originated the Claim Association of the early settlers.
On the 5th of September, 1835, a settlers' meeting was called at the cabin of Harmon Miller, on the east bank of the Kishwaukee River, in what was afterwards the town of Kingston, for the purpose of adopting such laws and regulations for self-government as the exigencies of the times and country demanded.
Happily, the best possible spirit prevailed. The Hoosier from the Wabash, the Buckeye from Ohio, the hunter from Kentucky, the calcu- lating Yankee, impelled by a sense of mutual danger, here sat down in grave council, to dictate laws to Kishwaukee and " the region lying round about."
Levi Lee was chosen to preside over this august assemblage, where the three great departments of free government-the executive, the legis- lative and the judicial, were most happily united, and Capt. Eli Barnes was appointed Secretary. Speech after speech, setting forth the wants and woes of the settlers, the kind of legislation demanded by the crisis, went the rounds. At last, ripe for immediate action, a committee was selected to draft and present to the meeting a constitution and by-laws, by which the settlers upon the public lands should be governed. After some little deliberation back of the shanty, around the stump of a big white oak, which served as a writing desk, said committee reported a
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HISTORY OF DEKALB COUNTY.
preamble, constitution and by-laws, which for simplicity, brevity and adaptation to necessity, it would be hard for any modern legislature to surpass. The common sense, law and logie, as well as patriotism, con- tained in this constitution and by-laws were instantaneously recognized to be the very things demanded by the crisis, and were adopted with unparalleled enthusiasm, each subscribing his name thereto, with his own hand : thereby pledging " Life, Fortune and Sacred Honor," to carry out the provisions of the code. It is not known that a copy of this unique document is now extant; still there may be. As nearly as can be recollected, its provisions were somewhat as follows : A Pruden- tial Committee was to be then and there chosen, whose duty it should be to examine into, hear and finally determine, all disputes and differences then existing, or which hereafter might arise, between settlers, in relation to their claims, and whose decisions, with certain salutary checks, where to be binding upon all parties, and to be carried out at all hazards, by the three departments of government, consolidated in aid of the executive. Each settler was solemnly pledged to protect every other settler in the association in the peaceful enjoyment of his or her reasonable claim, as aforesaid ; and further, whoever, throughout all Kishwaukee, or the suburbs or coasts thereof, should refuse to recognize the authority of the aforesaid association, and render due obedience to the laws enacted by the same from time to time, to promote the general welfare, should be deemed a heathen, a publican, and an outcast, with whom they were pledged to have no communion or fellowship. Thus was a wall, affording protection to honest settlers, built in troublous times. Hon. Levi Lee, Hon. Geo. H. Hill, Captain Eli Barnes, James Green and Jesse C. Kel- logg, were chosen to be the Settlers' Committee, and who, as may well be supposed, had business on hand for some time, in order to restore and ensure domestic tranquility, and promote the general welfare. The thing worked like a charm, and similar associations were formed and maintained in other portions of the country, until the lands came into market. This event took place in Chicago, in 1843 ; when all DeKalb County, except the northern tier of townships, was sold to the highest bidder.
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