Bureau County, Illinois - Chapter 7, 1885

THK NAME OF BUREAU COUNTY - How IT CAME - THE FIRST FIVE FAMILIES - WHO THEY WERE - BCLBONA, JOHN DIXON, CHARLES S. BOYD, HRNRY THOMAS - SOME LIVELY SKETCHES AND ANECDOTES - DEATH AND BURIAL OF JOHN DIXON - GURDON S. HUBBARD - THE ANCIENTS - FIEST POSTMASTER - OLDEST LIVING SETTLER - ABRAM STRATTON - His REMARKABLE TRIP IN 1829 - SKETCH OF HIM - THE BRIOHAMS - 'TOTAL FIRST TAX BUREAU COUNTY - REMARKABLE CAREER OF JOHN H. BOYD - THREE BROTHERS-IN-LAW - DANIEL SMITH'S DEATH, THE FIRST IN THE COUNTY - His WIDOW - ETC., ETC.

IN the year 1828 there were five families in Bureau County, coming here in the order named: Bulbona, John Dixon, Henry Thomas, Reason B. Hall . and John and Justus Ament. As it is now ascertained that the first white man to settle in Chicago was a black man named Baptiste, so the first white settler in Bureau County was the swarthy half-breed, "Old Bulbona" (Bourbonnais). Gurdon S. Hubbard had lived hereabouts in the service of the American Fur Company as early as 1818.

In June, 1827, Jobn Dixon and Charles S. Boyd passed through what is now Bureau County, on their way from Springfield to Galena, with a small drove of cattle for market at the lead mines. It was then an unoccupied wilderness from Peoria to Galena, and the only guide on the journey was a wagon track, made a few days before by a party who had gone from Galena to Peoria - probably the first wagon that had ever left its mark in all this vast region of northern Illinois. There was not a white settlement passed in all the country from

Peoria to Galena, and to all appearances there was not a white man in the great Northwest. The wigwams, the teppees and the Indian villages at long distances apart were the only human signs on a route of one hundred and fifty miles.

Alex. Boyd, the oldest son of Charles S. Boyd, born on the 3d day of July, 1817, and who recollects coming with his father's family to settle in the county in 1830, and who is now a citizen of Princeton, gives many interesting incidents, as he has heard his father relate them, of Mr. Boyd's trip with beef cattle to Galena. He lived in Springfield, the nearest neighbor of Mr. Todd, Abraham Lincoln's father-in-law. Alex, says he can well remember seeing Lincoln sneaking over to Todd's to see Mies Mary Todd, whom he afterward married. Mr. Todd had a negro servant, named Josiah Hinkle, who wanted to accompany Boyd on bis trip to Galona, and Mr. Todd finally consenting, he did so. Another man, whose name Alex cannot remember, was hired to go, and this constituted the force. It was a long and tedious trip; the streams were crossed by swimming the cattle and horses, and the men would grab the tails of some of the last brutes to enter the water, and holding on, would thus be ferried over, the great trouble being to protect their scant supply of provisions. Boyd disposed of his cattle at Galena, receiving the most of his money in silver. This was carried on a pony that he led on his return. When the party reached Dixon they found much difficulty in making a bargain with the Indians to ferry them across that the Indians would keep or try to carry out. They could easily agree upon the terms, but the contracting Indians would sneak off, and thus end the bargain. Boyd could not get any supply of provisions, and once, when he was not observing, a buck jumped on his pack horse (the one carrying the money) and started off down the river, whooping and yelling and under full whip. Of course he thought his money all gone, but in the course of half an hour the buck returned and delivered up the horse, and the money had not been disturbed. They finally got the Indians to carry them over in canoes, and swim the horses. But the trip was wearing out the horses, and the provisions were gone, and the men began to suffer for water. A small dog had followed them in all the long trip, and one night, when they had gone into camp, and to bed supperless, they talked the situation over and concluded to kill the do^ the next morning and have something to eat. And they slept with sweet dreams of roasted dog for breakfast. In the morning they found the clog dead. He had died of starvation. As already remarked, they were now suffering greatly for water; and Alex, tells us of his father's device to supply their thirsty throats. Getting up early in the morning (the drier the weather the heavier the dew) he stripped off his shirt, and holding it spread before him, ran at full speed through the tall grass, and thus gathering the dew from the grass, he wrung the garment, and had a drink of water. The others, seeing this original device, followed the example, and thus a general supply was secured.

Charles S. Boyd's brother-in-law, John Dixon, was then living in Peoria. He was the general county official - County Judge, County and Circuit Clerk, and pretty much every thing else officially, and with all these offices and faithful work on the tailor's bench combined, he eked out a slim subsistence for his family. John Dixon had married Boyd's sister, Elizabeth, and when Boyd stopped to see them in Peoria, he told them what a splendid country he had traveled through, and where the finest land he had ever seen was to be found. Dixon must have been deeply interested in the story, as he at once turned over all of his offices and came to Boyd's Grove and made an improvement. This was in the fall of 1827 it is supposed, and except that of Bourbonnais (Bulbona) was the first resl settlement in what is now Bureau County. Dixou lived at the Grove until 1830, when he sold his improvement to Charles S. Boyd and removed to Dixon, where he purchased the ferry of Ogee, and it became known all over the country as Dixon's Ferry, and finally he founded the present town of Dixou, and the beautiful city is a fitting monument to John Dixon's memory. He lived here until he was a very old man, surviving all his family. He accumulated much wealth at one time and was known far and wide as one of the warm-hearted and benevolent pioneers, whose enterprise, public spirit and warm generosity were like sweet sunshine to all about him. In his old age and helplessness he aided unworthy friends and trusted and endorsed for those who betrayed his trusts and he lost his property, and yet he was so retiring, in his nature, so uncomplaining, that he shut himself away from the world and his friends, so that his distressing poverty was only known to those who were eager to aid him and smooth the good old man's short road to the grave, when he was very near, indeed, the end of his life's goal. He thanked his friends -for their great kindness, but refused all offers of assistance. He died in 1876, when the people of Dixon and the surrounding country gathered about the good old man's open grave, and expressed in deepest sorrow their love and respect for the name and memory of John Dixon. John Dixon, Charles S. Boyd and - Kellogg were three brothers-in-law, and Boyd's Grove, the city of Dixon and Kellogg's Grove will remain forever important historical points in the settlement and growth of northern Illinois. Behold the fruits of their heroic works about us everywhere. Can the imagination conceive a nobler or greater monument ? *

Charles S. Boyd was a native of New York, born September 19, 1794, came to Springfield, 111., in 1825, and in 1830 to Boyd's Grove, in this county, and was one of the original parties- who established the stage route from Peoria to Galena He died in Princeton. November 12, 1881. His wife, Eliza (Dixon) Boyd, a native of Westchester, N. Y., died at their home in Princeton, October 12, 1875. Five children are still living: Alexander Boyd, of Princeton, born July 3, 1817; Nathaniel, living at Sheffield, aud John H., of the Isle of Tahiti, in the group of the Society Islands, in the South Sea.

* On Sunday, July 9, 1876, Father John Dixon was buried at Dixon, 111. One of tbe most imposing funeral services ever witnessed in this part of the State was held at his grave.

He was born in November, 1784, in N'ew York, and settled at Dixon in 1830. A coternporary paper the next day after the funeral says : " By the treachery of a friend in whom "he reposed the fullest confidence, he was several years since robbed of his all." We regret we have not the rascal's name, it would afford us much pleasure to impale him in immortal infamy, for the contempt and execration of all mankind, and thus make his vile name and character do some service to the world by contrasting it side by side with that of one of the best men of all the glorious, early pioneers, his victim, into whose confidence he had wormed himself, and then, evading the law, stole all the good old man had and for which he had braved and labored and struggled so manfully and so heroically. The law of the land cannot, it seems, be made to reach such tnwves as the robber of Father John Dixou. Rut the living, those who are heirs to the memory as well as the life-work of John Dixon, can. and it our duty to see that final justice is meted out to this the meanest, viles't and cowardly of all thieves. If the thief is dead let his memory and crime be made immortal, and let it pursue his blood and name until they are driven out of the world as the moral lepers whose poisoned blood is fit only for the deepest burial.

The account proceeds : " The remains were escorted from his late residence to the court house, where they lay in state, under a guard of Knights Templar until 1 o'clock, at which time the Mayor, Common Council and citizens in carriages met at the residence of the deceased, and accompanied by the family aud relatives, were received by military and civic societies in open order, through whose ranks they proceeded to the court house.

"The services were solemn and very impressive. The sermon of Dr. Luke Hitchcock, of Chicago, a pioneer of the liock River Valley, and an intimate friend of the deceased ; and a memorial prepared by Judge Eustace, of Dixon.

"The court house and houses along nil the streets were draped in mourning. The procession was over a mile long, and the fiineml was attended by over 8,000 people, special trains coming from Amboy, Ashton and Chicago.

adventure that must have existed in the breasts of most of the early pioneers to the West, and some of which was transmitted sometimes to their sons, we give the briefest sketch of John H. Boyd's career, when he quitted his home in Bureau County, in 1849, in the rush of adventurers to the gold mines of California. Lauding there, like the most of "Argonauts of '49," with an empty pocket, but a heart for every fate, he dug and delved for gold, and making enough to keep well alive, he wandered over the country, finally landing in San Francisco. He soon exhausted interest in the California gold mines, and his spirit of adventure had only been whetted, not satisfied, and he shipped on board a vessel and coasted down the shore of Mexico and finally to Cuba. Here he went to work to replenish his now depleted fortune and as soon as he had money enough he shipped to Sidney, Australia, the mines at that place just then attracting wide attention. Here for some time he worked with varying success, some times striking a pocket that helped his pocket, but generally skirmishing in much uncertainty as to where the next dinner was to be found. But undaunted he continued to delve and dig, and finally prudish fortune smiled upon the brave-hearted boy, and he became the possessor of a small fortune. He turned all he had into cash and left Australia, and started out to look at the balance of the world. With no laid-out route before him, simply walking aboard the first vessel to sail out of port, regardless of where it was bound, he took passage. In time he reached the Island of Tahiti, and the tropical beauties and luxuriance of the place was attractive to him and he stopped to enjoy it for awhile. He found here five trading-houses, conducted by English-speaking people. It seems the exporting and importing of the entire group of

Society Islands is by law required to be all done on this island of Tahiti. These merchants and traders were much pleased with Boyd's acquaintance and they began to urge him to go into trade on the island, and become one of them. So earnest were they, (he had not informed them whether he had money or not) that they offered to advance him all he might want. He eventually yielded to their solicitations, and returned to Sidney and to Honolulu and purchased goods and commenced business in Tahiti, where he is yet. He built vessels to carry the mails and the commerce between Tahiti and Honolulu and San Francisco, and in still the stole owner of this line.

The first tax ever collected here, this was then Bureau Township, Putnam County, was paid entirely by Charles S. Boyd, and the total sum was 70 cents.

Charles S. Boyd's two surviving daughters are Mrs. Elizabeth Chamberlin, living in Missouri, and Mrs. A. H. Paddock, widow of Dr. Paddock, of Princeton.

The fur-traders, belonging generally to the Great American Fur Company, were the first comers of the race of people now here, and the earliest of these who were temporary citizens of what is now Bureau County, was about 1821, at least seven years before the real pioneer, the permanent settler, came. Gurdon S. Hubbard, now a very old man of Chicago, was an employe of the Fur Company and came here in 1821. He was then only a boy, and his recollection is that Buero, a half-breed Frenchman, was here some time before he came. There were three substantial log-houses at this trading poet, which was on the river a short distance above the mouth of Bureau Creek. Here is where Bureau Creek gets its name, as well as the source of the county's peculiar name. In the first place it is of course a corruption, the spelling representing nearly the sound - in j some old documents the name was found as we have spelled it above - and the first traveler who was pleased with the county told his friends about it and very naturally all went at once to spelling it Bureau, and in this way it has continued and will remain.

The next in time and probably the first real permanent settler, was Bourbonnais, also a French half-breed, who settled at Bulbona (Bourbonnais) Grove in the southwest corner of Center Township about 1820. He had married a squaw and to all intents and purposes was an Indian, though a civilized one. His family were always much esteemed and respected. They had many of the Indian customs and habits, although BourbonnaiH himself (called Bulbona altogether by the white people) was ever ready to drop as fast as possible the wild life of the Indian and adopt that of the white man. He was, considering his early life, industrious and thrifty. He made permanent improvements, and was not at all sorry to remain and be wholly a white man, when he saw the Indians collecting together, to pay their parting visits to the burying-grounds of their ancestors, as

Those of the old and early settlers remember the large, rough old man very well. He kept whisky to sell to travelers, and when asked the price of a drink or a gallon of whisky, or anything else he had to sell, his invariable reply was, " Two dolla." Those who knew him would put down the reasonable pay and walk off, and he would say nothing; but some times strangers would be so astounded when he would inform them the price of a drink of his wretched whisky, that they would look into his serious, stolid face, express great disgust, and as no unbending expression of countenance would appear, they would pay " two dolla " and walk off, to the quiet delight of the old fellow. The neighbors of the rough old man say that he was quiet and inoffensive toward his neighbors. When an old mau, he died and his family scattered, going, we believe, to some of the wild Western Territories.

Two brothers, John and Justus Ament, came in 1829, in May. They settled on the south side of Bed Oak Grove. In May, 1828, came Henry Thomas. The last named had, the year before he came here, been engaged in selecting the most eligible stage route between Peoria and Galena. He had followed nearly the entire way the route that the two wagons and Boyd's party had taken from Galena to Peoria, crossing at Dixon and passing along down the timber of Bureau Creek to the timber of the Illinois River, and then turning southwest down the river. He had been so favorably impressed with the country here that he returned and located as above mentioned with his family as soon as he could arrange and bring them.

The Aments were Kentuckians, and they had first heard of the wonders of northern Illinois from the soldiers of Gen. George : Rogers Clark, whose expedition had come from Kaskaskia to Starved Rock in 1789. They were true and brave pioneers. After the Black Hawk war Justus Ament moved away, probably into Wisconsin, and John Ament in a little while sold out his claim near Dover and moved down to near where Princeton now stands, where he died, and was buried in the rear of his humble cabin. He left a widow and quite a family of children.

were soon widely known as "stage stands," and here man and ' ' beast" were entertained with the best the country could then afford. In 1831 Thomas became the first Postmaster in what is now Bureau County. We have not th« Blue Book at hand to see what Thomas' yearly salary was, but we are safe [ in the prediction it did not exceed 25 cents a year. Thomas was a plain, unpretentious man, although the first Postmaster in all this section of country; he never was a sub- ' ject or proprietor of the "contumely of office." If, with the assistance of the eight or ten people who lived west of the river, he was enabled to decipher the name and address on the single letter that was about the average quarterly return for a few hundred miles square around his office, he would then carry the same with its "I have sot myself down, and these few lines come hopping, and crops is good and my ink is pale and my poke berry juice is blue and my love will fade never for you, and the connexions is all well, and Bill and Betsey are just married, and rite, rite, rite, rite away," etc., etc. And thus by a long and a strong pull altogether and the assistance of a Postmaster, the deeply interesting letter would be triumphantly read and passed around and re-read and then read again and the whole region of country could repeat the thing "by heart. If for the next quarter a letter was sent from the new world it would faithfully follow copy, and " sot down," and have the regular "hopping" and the "blue pen" and fading poke berry juice for ink, and the price of "crops," etc., etc., etc. The postage in these days was 25 cents a letter, and was not prepaid at that. All officials carried their offices in their hats, weighted down by a bandanna handkerchief. Thus Henry Thomas tilled his great mission in life. The complete simplicity of the man is fully exemplified by a story of Alexander '

Boyd, who called at the early settler's house to electioneer for a certain man for Sheriff. He finally told Thomas his business, when Thomas said: "No, Til not vote for him for Sheriff, because the last 'lection I voted for - for Sheriff, and the very next day after he was elected he came out and served me with a hatful of papers. No, indeed, I don't need a Sheriff." The cream of this joke is, Thomas was a man who was honest, peaceable, quiet, and was never in debt or had lawsuits, and the fact was he was probably as little troubled by officers serving papers, unless summonses to act as juryman or something of that kind, as any man ever in the county. But he stuck to his joke and would not go near the election.

Elizabeth Baggs came in 1828, with Henry Thomas' family - a niece of Thomas. She was a fine, plump girl, and being then, beyond question, the belle - at least the white belle of the county; because, like Alexander Selkirk, she was " monarch ess of all she surveyed; " her title there was none to dispute. Her sister Sally is now the widow Stratton.

Heman Downing came in 1834, a carpenter; lived here three years; built many houses. In 1836 married Rachel Holbrook. Downing died here April 29, 1882, leaving eight children, two of whom, Edwin O. and Mary Eliza, and his' widow, are now living in the county. Enos and Jonathan Holbrook came in 1834 with two sisters, from New Hampshire. In 1835 David Holbrook came. In 1837 the parents, Enos and wife, came with another daughter; the latter is now the widow King, and resides in Princeton.

Stratton. At a large meeting of old settlers, in 1805, the oldest settler in the county was called for and requested to come forward and take a seat on the platform; Mr. Stratton responded, the record says, " a hale, hearty man of some sixty or sixty-five. "

Abram Stratton was born in Ulster County, N. Y., February 18, 1805, and died of paralysis, in Bureau County, August 28, 1877, aged seventy-three years. His mother died when he was five years old, and his father died five years after. When grown, or nearly grown, Abram left the Hudson Valley, and Nathan, his younger brother, Went to sea, and was never heard from after. In 1829 Abram left New York on foot, his knapsack on his back, and this way came to Illinois, and thus traversed the State from its length to its breadth. After leaving Detroit he was only guided by Indian trails. He reported meeting between Detroit and Chicago the pony mail-carrier, who then made trips once every two months, carrying the mail between Detroit and Chicago. Chicago was then Fort Dearborn, garrisoned by troops, guarding the trading post and annuity office established for the benefit of the Indians,who swarmed for miles around the post.

Mr. Stratton spent the winter in Peoria, having stuck stakes for his Bureau County claim in 1829. The following summer, from some point near St. Louis, guided by a pocket compass, he started to return to New York. He eventually reached his old home, and after a short rest he started on his return via the Erie Canal to Buffalo, then by the lakes to the mouth of the St. Joseph River, Michigan. Boats were seldom run at that time to Fort Dearborn. He patiently towed his goods around the lake during a stormy November, and finally buying an ox team and making a sled, he started from Chicago in a December snow-storm over the trackless prairies and pathless woods, followed or disturbed by packs of wolves, and warmed and buoyed up by high Irbpes and firm resolves. The plainest statement of the voyaging of this young pioneer is a historic picture that should be hung in the porches of every house, and in the portals of every schoolroom in the land. There is a lesson here that should not be forgotten. The nerve to be a hero in the wilderness, the frightful storms, the soul -frightening howl of the hungry wolves, the eternal waste of dreariness, is vastly different from playing a part in the face of the world and sustained and cheered by the conscious sympathy of at least friends and fellow-beings. At the block and the stake, in battle's red charge, and in the most horrid carnage of war, there is fellow-sympathy and enthusiasm, the bugle's blast, the clang and hurrah that set men's blood on fire - and shouting victory they rush upon death. This is heroic gallantry. In all ages men have sought martyrdom; have stood to bo hewn to pieces without a moan, even with songs of gladness; but in all time the "solitary " has overcome the nerves and will of the strongest, and always broken them down. I In painting and literature the heroic and sublime is always in connection with great numbers. Will the great painter ever come who can put upon canvas the soul of the story of the lone pioneer as we have told above of Abram Stratton, pulling his boat around the bend of Lake Michigan in that stormy November, or his beating his way across the lonely prairies in the snow-storms of that wild December, the howling of the wolves and , the fierce storms the only sounds that break upon the vast solitudes? And for what was all this heroic sacrifice? Look out over this rich and beautiful land of plenty and joy and wealth and happiness, and the one inevitable answer will come to you.

October 16, 1831, Abram Stratton married Miss Sarah Baggs. This was the second marriage in the county of Putnam, of which this county was a part. And in the first list - of jurors drawn atHennepin.the county seat, j appears the name of Abram Stratton.

In the latter part of 1876 Mr. Stratton was stricken with paralysis, and lingered and suffered much until, as above stated, he sank peacefully into a dreamless sleep. He was buried in Forest Hill Cemetery in Wyanet, a great throng of mourners and friends attending, for no man that ever lived in the county was more widely known or sincerely loved. His friends were all mankind; his sincere mourners were all who knew him. His name and deeds and memory are much of the history of Bureau County. Standing at the head of his new-made grave, the Rev. T. J. Pomeroy, of Wyanet, said: " Kindhearted and genial, faithful and resolute, he had many friends and warm friends. Of a judicial turn of mind, he carefully turned all facts over before deciding any case, and his conclusions were generally so accurate that his opinions had great weight with his fellow-men. He was a man of fidelity. He delighted to show how accurately he could keep his promises. Integrity and honesty are the words that best describe his modest and unobtrusive life."

In the spring of 1829 came Sylvester Brigham and Warren Sherley, unmarried men, from Massachusetts, and stopped at the house of Henry Thomas. With their knapsacks on their backs they traveled all the way from Detroit. Brigham made a claim on the west side of West Bureau Creek, and Sherley settled at what was afterward Heaton's Point. The two young men worked and made sufficient improvements on their claims to hold them, and then returned to the East, where Sherley remained, but Brigham came back the next spring, and brought James G. Forristal with him. They came down the Ohio River and up the Illinois River as far as Peoria on a steamboat; the boat, named Volunteer, was about the very first that had ever been seen at Peoria, at which point she landed in April, 1830. A leading old settler and a prominent Peorian of that day planted his old blunderbuss on the sandy beach and fired away, and the whole people were out to see and rejoice over the great occasion.

Brigham and Forristal built cabins in Dover Township, and for some years each occupied his cabin alone, as neither had a wife. (See Joseph Brigham's biography for a genealogy of the Brigham family.)

Daniel Smith, of Boston, came to the county in July, 1831, with his family. He had come down the Ohio and up the Illinois River. On his way up he fell in company with Mosely and Musgrove at Naples, and this event shaped his course to this particular spoi He made a claim and commenced his improvements on the land that is now the Austin Bryant farm. Within twenty days of his arrival Smith sickened and died (about August 8, 1831,) and was buried half a mile north of the Princeton railroad depot. This was the first death of a white person, so far as can now be ascertained, that occurred in the county.

Daniel Smith had married in his native State, Miss Electa Pomeroy, who still survives him, and is living in the county, with her sons, Jn Ohio Township. (See biography of Daniel P. Smith in another part of this book.)

Moses M. Thompson came October, 1834, from Hennepin. He was born in Ohio, June 15, 1810. His father was John Thompson, who was a Tennesseean, and removed to Ohio, where he married Mary Frankeberger. William Frankeberger, a brother, died in Wyanet, March 19. The Thompsons in Tennessee were a wealthy family. The sons of Moses were M. M. and Alfred T., who came with their father. Alfred T. was at one time County Clerk. He died October 30, 1850. A sister, Matilda, married Nicholas Smith; died December 3, 1851. William Young came in 1838. His descendants are still in the county. Prelate White came in 1839, but sold out and went to Texas. James Haumerick came in 1839 and located in Wyanet. Thomas Clark, noted as the father of James T. Clark, the great railroad man, came in 1837, and in the building of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Road James T. Clark commenced as a boy to drive the horse in pulling cars, at $16 a month, when they were at work on the Buda Section. Thomas H. Finley was a very early settler in Wyanet. He was a man of good education - a fine book-keeper, etc. - but was unfortunate in business. About 1839 Shepherd Walters settled in this township. One of his sons, A. M. Walters, is in Iowa, a noted lawyer.