Kane County, Illinois - Chapter 2: The Ancestors of the Pioneers, 1908

Chapter 2: The Ancestors of the Pioneers

]Much has been written, much is known of the personnel of the pioneers who in the '30s settled Kane county, building their log cabins of rough hewn oak, from Dundee to Aurora, but not so much has been recorded of the ancestry of these men, and the nest where they were reared. There is a tradition, much repeated, that they were largely of that ancient and honored people, the Puritans of the New England colonies. Many were so derived, but not all, nor perhaps most of them.

The type from which these early pioneers came was not the type of Salem, but rather a type formed by an admixture of many races during two centuries from 1620 to 1830; a peculiarly American type that had been made from the struggles of the New England colonies before, during and after the Revolution, with forest and savage and Englishman and Frenchman. They were as unlike the original Puritans as they were unlike the English, the Scot, the Irish or the Dutch, from which they were derived. They were the new American race of men, - sturdy, bold, brave farmer warriors, who cleared the forest and planted their crops within the hostile view of barbarian redmen ; their guns always within reach; their homes fortresses made ready for momentary attack.

The land along the Atlantic seaboard was settled and permanently occupied by different races; the English in the north, the Dutch in New York and Pennsylvania, where also were English settlements under Penn ; in Virginia and the South many English of a different class and time than the Puritans of the North. The Cavalier of the Carolinas was as different from the Puritans as either were from the Dutch. A sprinkling of French Huguenots might be added.

As originally settled, these colonies maintained themselves and realized each an independent existence, with little intermarriage and much contest, particularly upon religious and jmlitical matters.

But in the i8th century, when the land near the sea had long been the seat of a contented people little disturbed by the presence of savages and pursuing the works of peace, just west of them upon the new frontier line pushed west to the Alleghany mountain valley, a new battle was being fought for land and place b}^ a new and mixed people made up from the adventurous or persecuted who left the older settled colonies and pttshing to the frontier forest, there joining the newer immigration of many nations pressing westward for free land; as years ago the Swedes came and settled in the frontier land of the Dakotas and Minnesota. The tide of incoming immigration has not stopped among the settled Eastern districts, but has flowed past them into the West. So in the last century, a hundred years after the first seaboard settlements, this new immigration was coming in and passing to the foothills and valleys of the mountains, and beyond into the forests of New York, Vermont. Pennsylvania and Virginia. All which country was being rapidly filled by this mixed people. By the time of the French and Indian war (1763) it had been estimated there was a population of man}" thousands, who realized a bulwark of protection between the more settled seaboard colonies and the western wilderness, where bands of hostile savage tribes dwelt at perpetual warfare with these newer pioneers - the entering- wedge to the western prairie lands. The growing eastern populations and the constant stream of immigration necessitated this acquisition of new lands ; and coming not as communities, but as individual families, pride of race and nationality lost much of its force. All mingled here in one common democracy united by the need for common defense against an alert foe habituated to forest conflict. Here grew up the first American people unprejudiced by the traditions of any particular state. All were on a common footing; each equal to any; all imbued by that spirit, of independence and courage ever developed by contact with the freedom and wildness of nature; where none may dictate and the individual alone is valued.

They were a rough, sturdy race of men and women, endowed with the qualifications of the pioneer in a degree never surpassed in the history of the world. They came of the Scotch. Irish-English stock, with a strain of Pennsylvania Dutch ; a sprinkling of French Huguenots. Xo stronger foundation was ever built for conquering a wilderness and making a nation. They were . the "backwoodsmen" of the latter part of the first century of American settlements; a class by themselves - unique in America and in the world - the first Americans.

They dwelt along the border land of the older colonies in the Alleghanies, spreading westward into New York and Pennsylvania, hundreds of miles from the eastern settlements. They had here, during several generations of conflict and conquest, acquired a strong likeness in thought and ways of living. The dominant blood was the Scotch-Irish-English Protestant, who came to this new land that they might enjoy freedom in act and thought ; free from the oppression of the state or church. They were of the old Covenanters; followers of Knox and Calvin: hard headed, strong hearted

That the early settlers of Kane county were of this new American type is evidenced, not only by the communities they built up, but also by the territory they came from into the West. Christopher Payne, the first arrival, was from New York state. Joseph and Samuel McCarty, the founders of Aurora, were of Scotch-English descent, and from New York, though natives of New Jersey. Hezekiah and James T. Gifford, founders of Elgin, were from the same state and of the same descent. Judge Isaac Wilson, an early pioneer of Batavia. was from New York state; as were Joseph Lyon (1835), A. M. Moore (1838), William Van Nortwick (1835).

In Big Rock, L. J. Lamson came from New York in 1837, as did j\Iatthew and William Perry, 1835. James W. Swan (1836). Joseph Summers (1836), Robert Nash I 1836). Robert Norton and Silas Long were from Ohio. Jesse Brady ( 1837) was from New York: as were Isaac Hatch ( 1837), Shepherd Johnson (1839). Paul Colburn (1836).

In Blackberry, William Lance, the first pioneer, came from New Jersey in 1S34; David Beeler was a Scotchman; as were David \\". Annis, from Vermont (1835), R. Acers, of New A'ork; Loren D. Kendall (1834), C. H. Spaulding, of New York ; E. G. Moore, of the same state, and others.

In Burlington the first to come was Stephen Win \'elzer, from New- York; also Allison Baker, Solomon Wright and Asa W. Lawrence; John Halden was from Pennsylvania, Stephen Godfrey from \'ermont. Nearly all were men of the Scotch-Irish-Englisb. type.

In Campton township, John Beatty, from Pennsylvania ; Harvey Warne (1837), was a New Yorker; John Whitney ( 1837), from Ohio; Harry and Spaulding Eddy were from New York; Luke Pike, from Ohio; James Ward came from New York ( 1836) ; as did Franklin Walkins (1837).

In Dundee township the first settlers were Jesse H. Newman and Joseph Russell, of Scotch-English descent, and originally Virginians and Kentuckians. Jesse Oatman, A. R. Dempster (1835); Thomas Deweese, T. H. Thompson, I. C. Bosworth, ^^'illiam Hale and George McClure, all were of Scotch-Irish-English descent.

In Elgin township, Isaac Stone (1835), E. K. Mann (1S35), Joseph Tefft (1835), Nathan Collins (1835). William G. Kimball, S. J. T-Cimball were New Yorkers; as were Ira :\Iinard, J. D. Owen, N. G. Phillips, Calvin Pratt and Washington Wing; James Hanks, the first settler near Elgin, was from New York; General Elijah Wilcox, L. S. Eaton (1838), A. B. Fish (1845), George Renwick (1838), Levi S. Stowe (1843), M. C. Town (1846L were from the same state.

In Aurora township, Joseph McCarty was from Elmira, N. Y. (1834). During the same year came W. T. Elliott, Elijah Pierce, Seth Reed, Zaphira Lake and Hiram. In 1835, Daniel Eastman, Lindolph Huntoon, Winslow Higgins, George Gorton, Theodore Lake, E. D. Terry, B. F. Fridley, John Barker, M. D. Cone. Charles Bates, L. Muzzy, R. Matthews, D. Gorton, B. F. Phillips. Elgin squires; all clearly nf Scotch-Irish-English descent,

In Rutland township the tirst settler was E. R. Starks, from Vermont; Nathaniel Crampton (1836), Noble King (1836), Elijah Rich (1835), Andrew McCornack, were Scotchmen; William Moore (1838), William Lynch (1838), and John Hunter (1838), were Irish.

This typical American people, most of whom had back of them three generations among the hills and frontiers of the eastern states, had been molded by the experiences and hardships of a century. They were, as suggested, a mixed people, but in standards, mostly Scotch Presbyterians ; descended largely from Scotch ancestors. They were strict Protestants of the older type, when each sect w-as content to believe the members of other beliefs w-ould go into outer darkness and they into everlasting joy. They had no liking for the Catholics nor the Episcopalians. A headstrong, rough and ready people; self-dependent and asking favors of none; instinctive antagonists ; descendants of the followers of Cromwell ; fighters by heredity.

The Scotch and Irish Presbyterians came to the new world in large numbers about 1700, and settled as before outlined, on new lands beyond the colonial habitations. They pushed into the wilderness, leading the movement westward, where they joined the New Englanders in the same territory. They were among the first to force themselves into the Indian's country. With the Bible in one hand and a flintlock musket in the other, they penetrated the wilderness, made a clearing, built their log cabins, tilled a few acres of land, hunted in the unbroken forests, fished and trapped and made a meager living; meantime, pushing forward and opening prairie and forest for those who crowded in behind with industry and progress; and a civilization, such as has been the wonder of the world.

The original seat of this type which settled the entire ]\Iiddle West before the modern immigration of German, Scandinavian, Italian, Pole and Russian had begun, was in New York, Pennsylvania, and in the Alleghany valleys of Virginia. Where their lands were near the more settled eastern populations, they built up small towns and villages, where might have been seen a store, blacksmith shop and possibly a tavern where the traveler might find rough rest for the night : in addition usually a log schoolhouse and church. The latter were the first necessities of this devout people. The minister, commonly termed the elder, dwelt in no parsonage, but usually was a missionary or itinerant preacher who boarded among the cabins and preached zealous. earnest, Calvinistic sermons to hearers who came not to criticise but to learn. But as a class, these frontiersmen did not build towns, but cultivated their farm lands. They settled near together for protection against the Indians, who were in the adjoining forest ready at any time to attack, bum and destroy

The forest and hill was everywhere. Nowhere prairie lands ready for the plow. Every acre had to be cleared and made ready for cultivation, while watchful savages were on every side. The gun and the ax were the necessary weapons of these pioneers of the Alleghanies, of whom man}- who first came to Kane countv were erandchildren.

A number of the families settling in the wilderness made a clearing and built within it a stockade of logs, set upright, with loopholes all around, and a row of log cabins on one side, with a heavy wooden gate that might be quickly barred in case of assault. Sometimes a central loghouse was built in the middle of the stockade. These forest fortresses were used only for storing provisions and in case of threatened Indian attacks; the pioneers at ordinary times remaining at their cabins outside the stockade.

Corn was the grain mostly cultivated in the clearings and was relied on for food. But potatoes, melons and fruits were raised and orchards planted. Horses and cows, hogs and sheep were kept when practical, which was not always, owing to the depredations of wolves and bears.

The cabin was most frequently of unfinished logs with clay forced in between them, and of one room, in one end of which was built a huge fireplace of stone, clay, and sticks. This served for heating and cooking purposes. The floor was made up of logs, one side of which were hewn as even as possible and the uneven places filled with clay. This was the puncheon floor. The roof was of boards roughly cut out of logs. Pegs of wood dri\en into the logs served for hanging garments, or to hold the rifles ; although frequently the antlers of a deer served that purpose. For a table, a large, rough cut board was placed on four wooden legs. Chairs were three-legged handmade stools, save where a prosperous family might enjoy the luxury of a rocking chair. The couch or bed of rough boards was covered with blankets of deer hides and bearskin; sometimes a buffalo robe. Few pictures adorned the walls. Curtains were unheard of luxuries. The customary dress was a fur cap, trousers and shirt of buckskin or homespun cloth, and shoes or moccasins of the same skin ; the shirt or outer coat hanging loose nearly to the knees, and held at the waist by a belt, in which the hunting knife was carried. A long, smooth-bore flintlock rifle completed the pioneer backwoodsman's equipment as hunter and farmer. It was usually fired from a rest, being heavy.

Social life among this people, scattered in the wilderness, was necessarily very simple, and consisted largely in those pursuits that gave support to the family. The husband and father was the provider; the wife and mother, housekeeper. To feed and clothe the family from such materials as were provided was the mother's work ; no small task in view of the fact that large families was the rule. The rule of cooperative help was universal. Log rollings, house building, corn shucking, quilting, and the providing of many of the needs of life were done by the united effort of neighbors, who gathered together, first at one cabin, then another, to do the work. Such meetings were made the occasion of such gaiety as was possible among such a people. Dancing was usual for the young folks. Intoxicants were plentiful. The hostess did her best to provide a table for the party, containing every luxury obtainable. Athletic games and contests among the young men were a usual feature of the occasion: racing, jumping, wrestling and lifting, husking corn, etc. Brawls and fighting were not infrequent.

A wedding was always the occasion of much festivity. The bride rode to church usually on a horse, behind her father, co.ming back on her future husband's horse. If no cliurch was near, the marriage was at the cabin of the bride's parents : a dinner was had. and after that dancing all day and night, the music being furnished by a lone fiddler; the ballroom, the rough puncheon floor. After the wedding the neighbors got together and cut the logs and built a new house for the young people, and at the housewarming that followed its completion, general feasting and dancing was indulged in.

Education was meager in the wilderness. Few went bevond readinsr, writing and simple arithmetic. The teacher boarded with the families as part payment for his services. About three and one-half dollars was a year's tuition.

E\"ery family in that day conducted a farm and factory. The women wove into homespun cloth the flax grown on the farm or the wool cut from the sheep's back. The men tanned and cured the skins they had secured in the forest. The kitchen utensils were mostly of wood, hand shaped into bowls, plates, spoons, etc. Plows were secured in the East, but harrows and other farming tools were hand-made of wood. The corn was usually ground on a hand mill consisting of a block of wood with a hole in the center, in which the corn was placed. It was then pounded and crushed with a stone or wooden pestle worked by hand. In the fall farmers would make up a horse pack of hides and skins which were sent to some near town and exchanged for necessary articles, such as salt, iron implements, etc., which they could not make themselves.

"Thus the backwoodsmen lived on the clearings they had hewn out of the everlasting forest; a grim stern people, strong and simple, powerful for good and evil, swayed by gusts of strong passion, the love of freedom rooted in their very heart's core. Their lives were harsh and narrow; they gained their bread by their blood and sweat, in the unending struggle with the wild ruggedness of nature. They suffered terrible injuries at the hands of the redmen. and on their foes they waged a terrible warfare in return. They were relentless, revengeful, suspicious, knowing neither ruth nor pity; they were also upright, resolute and fearless, loyal to their friends, and devoted to their country. In spite of many failings, they were of all men the best fitted to conquer the wilderness and hold it against all comers."

But while many, perhaps most of the early settlers of Kane county, were of this Scotch-Irish-English stock, molded and made new in the struggle of the wilderness, a considerable element of the older so-called Puritan stock, descendants of the original New England people, came here in an early day. They were of that class who followed the backwoodsmen as they opened the forest and prairie. And that they came into Kane county with the descendants of the Scotch Presbyterians, most of whom, like themselves, had doubtless never seen an Indian or lived on the frontier battle line, was because the land of northern Illinois was cleared of Indians by the soldiers of the United States government, and by the purchase of their lands. It is well known history that during the time England owned and controlled the colonies, her policy was to discourage settlements in the \\''est, as she enjoyed and desired to continue the profitable trade her merchants there enjoyed among the French and Indians. And when independence had been secured, the new nation was too busy getting her feet well planted and her name respected among the nations of the world, to give much attention to the opening of the wilderness. Hence the contest in the early days was carried on by the frontier people with little aid from the soldiery, who were more often defeated by the Indians than successful, knowing little of the methods of frontier warfare.

But early in the seventeenth century the general government adopted a policy of buying the Indian lands and transferring the redmen to the West. This was done as regards the lands of the Sacs, Fox and Pottawattomies in the Fox river and Rock river valleys. There was some dissatisfaction on the part of the Indians with the terms of purchase. This fact is given as the exciting cause of the Black Hawk war, which was c^uickly put down by government troops. In 1790, in Washington's administration, the Indians had attacked settlements in Ohio, and it required several years" fighting to suppress the redmen. They made a treaty ceding northern Ohio to the United States.

In 181 1 the Indians again conspired together under a chief named Tecumseh and attacked the settlements in the Northwest. William Henry Harrison, afterward president, then governor of Indiana territory, met and defeated them at Tippecanoe, in western Indiana. The Indians later joined with England in the war of 1812. The Fort Dearborn massacre, commemorated by a bronze statue at the foot of Eighteenth street, Chicago, occurred at this time. The punishment given the redmen in these wars increased their fear, if not respect, and they not unwillingly, if sometimes reluctantly, sold their lands to the general government and accepted lands west of the Mississippi.

This combination of facts made it possible to settle northern Illinois without massacre or bloodshed. When the pioneers came they found the Indians friendly, or at least pacified. They soon disappeared entirely, leaving the newcomers in undisturbed possession, contesting only among themselves, and with nature.

As above suggested, this peaceful entry of a new land by individuals was a new fact in the world. - a fact since repeated many times in the settlement of the far West.

National Conditions In 1835

The coming of the pioneers, who swept like a wave over the middle western states after the French and Indian war, reached northern Illinois about 1830, during the first administration of Andrew Jackson as president. The general population of the United States then numbered about thirteen millions, having more than doubled since the War of Independence; mostly by natural growth, the later foreign immigration not having yet begun. The center of population was near the west line of Maryland. It is now near Indianapolis, Indiana. Less than ten per cent of the people lived in cities of over 8,000. Now over forty-five per cent are in such cities. New York city then comprised 200,000 inhabitants; Philadelphia, 167,000; Baltimore,

80,000; Boston, ()0.ooo: Cincinnati, tlie largest western settlement, was a small town. Chicago was a distant settlement known as Fort Dearborn, and contianed 400 or 300 people. There were but three millionaires in the entire country. The naticm was yet largely composed of agriculturists and backwoodsmen hunters.

Great industrial in\entions were, however, fast coming into use. Steamboats were a new fact, and ran on the great lakes from Buffalo to Chicago, and on the western rivers. The Erie canal was a much used waterway from Xew York to Buffalo and the great lakes, and much facilitated the transportation of settlers to Illinois. i\Iany came by lake to Chic^ago, and then west by ox-team. The application of steam to railroading began in 1828, but railroads were not built in Illinois until after settlement had well advanced.

President Jackson was at this time seeking to have the charter of the United States Bank refused on application for renewal. This he accomplished ; which fact, with the general conditions of trade, led to a panic and general depression, which, doubtless, had no small part in urging pioneers to undertake the settlement of free lands in the wilderness of the West.

Although it is now but seventy-five years (two generations) since the first white men looked upon the beautiful Fox river valley and found it good, it is uncertain wlio first trod its soil and who first made permanent settlement within its boundaries. 2^Iany came about the same time.

Among the first to cross the Fox river within the limits of the present county were soldiers sent here to put down the uprising of the Indians during the Black Hawk war, in 1832. The tradition, which apparently states the fact, has for years held place that a troop of horsemen and soldiers from old Fort Dearborn, or from the eastern states, made their way northwest along what is the old Chicago road, through what is now Bloomingdale, DuPage county, and crossed Fox river near what is now known as Five islands, just north of St. Charles. The exact point of crossing is not clearly known. They passed on further northwest. Two graves of soldiers of that company were long visible on the bank of the river. The path they then took was long used as the state road from Chicago to the northwest, and is still the "main highway as far as Bloomingdale, with branches to the various towns along the river.

None of the first pioneers in the Fox river valley are now living, although a mmiber who came as early as 1838 are still residents of the county, and though well advanced in years, are able to clearly picture those earlier days. \Miere now there are busy factories and places of trade on every hand, and all the luxuries, as well as vices of civilization, are realized, then the virgin forest and stream filled the landscape with beauty and promise. Of those who came from 1840 to 1850 many live to give information of conditions and progress then had, and of the arrivals after 1850 a large number still reside in the county, where for sixty years, they have been conteiil to dwell with their chiklren and grandchildren.

Such information as we have gathered together in this book we have obtained from books which have been written by personal interviews with the older settlers yet living, and from the newspapers and records of the county.

The True Cause Of Settlement

It is generally stated in the public histories of Wisconsin and Illinois that the defeat of Black Hawk opened to settlement northern Illinois and the southern portion of what is now \\"isconsin. Unqualified, this statement is misleading; indirectly, it is true tliat the war proved a powerful agent in the development of this region. The Indians in themselves were no obstacle to legitimate settlement, the frontiers of which were far removd from Black Hawk's village, and neetl not have crowded it for several years to come. Of course, it was necessary in time to clear the path for civilization. What this war accomplished in the way of territorial development was to call national attention in a marked manner to the attractions and resources of this part of the great Northwest. The troops acted as explorers of this tract, concerning which nothing has been known definitely among the white men. It is also stated that the Sauk Indians had not inhabited the part of Illinois north of the mouth of the Kishwaukee, and when the war was fought and they were followed into Wisconsin, it is also stated that they were unfamiliar with that country and employed Winnebago guides. Immediately after the war the newspapers of the eastern and older settled middle states were filled with descriptions more or less full of the scenes and possibilities and prospective industries in the Rock river valley, of the groves and prairies on every hand and of the dense forests of Wisconsin. From the press were issued books and pamphlets and accounts of the newly discovered paradise. For the most part crude publications, abounding in error, and today unknown, save to the historian, but it is true that they did advertise the country and set flowing thither the tide of emigration. There necessarily followed in due time the opening to sale of the public lands hitherto reserved and the properties of what territory remained among the Indian tribes of the district. The Winnebagoes, hitherto unfriendly, were humbled and the spirit of mischief making ceased. This, it will be noticed, was the last Indian tiprising in the northern states, east of the Mississippi river. This incidental subduing of the ^^'innebagoes and the broad, liberal advertisement given to the theater of disturbance» were, therefore, the two practical and immediate results of the Black Hawk war, the consecjuences of which were at once to give enormous impetus to the development of the state of Illinois and the territory of W'isconsin.