Kendall County, Illinois - Chapter 5: Early Settlements, 1877

Chapter 5: Early Settlements

EMPTY was the wilderness, that in 1820, when Alexander Wolcott, the Indian agent at Chicago, wished to be united in marriage to Ellen M. Kinzie, he was obliged with his bride and party to go down the silent Fox and Illinois valleys, one hundred and thirty miles, to Fulton county, to find a Justice of the Peace to perform the ceremony.

The year following Lewis Cass arrived in a birch canoe, charged with the weighty business of obtaining from the red men the right of way for a government railroad from Detroit to Chicago, uniting Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. He obtained the land, but the project fell through and was left for the Michioran Southern Railroad Company to accomplish. The lead mines at Galena caused that portion of the State to be settled before any of the surrounding territory. The mines began to be worked in 1821, and in five years Galena was laid out, and the county organized. The first miners used to spend their winters at home, returning to the mines in the spring at the time when suckers run, and this coincidence and their great numbers caused them to be called "Suckers." In this way, so the tradition runs, the inhabitants of Illinois came by their cant name.

The American Atlas, published at Philadelphia in 1822, says : "Illinois has nineteen counties and fiftyfive thousand inhabitants. The settlements at present are confined to the southern portion of the State, and the neighborhood of the great rivers. Vandalia is now the seat of government. Kaskaskia, the former capital, contains a bank, a land office, and about one hundred and sixty houses, scattered over an extensive plain. The town was settled upward of one hundred years ago by emigrants from Lower Canada, and about one-half the inhabitants are French. The surrounding country is under good cultivation."

On the accompanying map counties were laid ofi" as far as Madison, opposite the mouth of the Mississippi river. All north of that was unsurveyed territory, containing Indian villages only.

"The scenery about Chicago consists merely of a plain in which but few patches of thin and scrubby woods are observed scattered here and there. The village presents no cheering prospect, as notwithstanding its antiquity it consists of but few huts, inhabited by a miserable race of men - scarcely equal to the Indians - from whom they are descended. Their log or bark houses are low, filthy and disgusting, displaying not the least trace of comfort. The number of trails centering at this point and their apparent antiquity indicate that this was probably for a long time the site of a large Indian village. As a place of business it ofiers no inducement to the settler."

The poor opinion of the government surveyors possibly contributed to the delay of the work, for another S£ven years passed before much more was done.

Indian Boundary Line

strikes Kendall county at the north-east section corner, on the estate of William Murray, town of Na-au-say, passing through the Aux Sable timber, in the town of Seward, and crosses the creek on J. McKanna's land. There it turns, where there is a jog in the road, at a point opposite to where the south boundary strikes the Kankakee, and goes nearer west, crossing Lisbon creek four times, in the town of Lisbon, passing a few rods south of the red school house, in the town of Big Grove, through Apakesha grove, and out of the county, eighty rods north of Holderman's grove. It strikes Fox river two or three miles below Sheridan. The southern boundary ends at the Kankakee river, two miles above Wilmington. Those surveyors were probably the first whites who explored our county. No provision was made for constructing the canal until Congress, in 1827, granted every alternate section in a strip five miles in width for that purpose. Two years afterwards Chicago was laid out by the canal commissioners, on the first alternate section.

In 1823 Archibald Clvbourne came from Virorinia, horseback, to Chicago, and took up a claim on the west fork of the North Branch, three miles from the fort. The same year Dr. Davidson built a cabin by the mineral spring in what is now South Ottawa, and traded with the Indians until his death three years after.

was sent out as a Methodist missionary among the Pottawatomies, and traversed much of the same ground passed over by Marquette one hundred and sixty years before. The same hills that then echoed to the French tongue, now echoed to the English, but a purer gospel was proclaimed, and one more free from the additions of men. Mr. Walker was a small man, and usually wore a light-colored beaver, nearly as large as a lady's parasol. He was not a talented preacher, but had good sense, courage and zeal. He was born in Buckingham county, Ya., June 9, 1766, and was converted in a Baptist meeting, while young. He was bv trade a dresser of buckskin, or deer leather, for gloves, moccasins, pants.

vests and hunting shirts, and he was often familiarly called the " skin-dresser." He was first appointed missionary to the territories of Illinois and Missouri in 1806, and in 1820 preached the first Methodist sermon in St. Louis, in the Baptist meeting house, and a thriving church was formed. In 1823 he entered upon his special mission to the Indians, liaving first gained permission of the head men of the tribe and of the Secretary of War. His field was Northern Illinois, with Ottawa for a centre. One of his stations was a log chapel in the edge of the timber, near a little stream, just over the west line of Kendall county. The stream is since known as Mission creek, and the tongue of timber as Mission Point. The chapel, it is believed, stood about where Frank Bowen's barn now stands. There the lone missionary held preaching services, by the help of an interpreter, and established an Indian school for the dusky boys and girls. He preached also in the cabins at Ottawa, for several other settlers had come in, viz : Joseph Brown, Lewis Baily, Mr. Covill, Enos Pembrook, Warner Ramsey, Pierce Hawley, Robert Beresford, and Edmund Weed. In 1825 he formed the first Methodist class in Peoria. Three of the members were James Walker and wife, and Mrs. John Dixon. Indeed, he traveled and preached and taught wherever he could hear of Indians or settlers. The veteran, John Sinclair, often declared that wherever he went Jesse Walker had been ahead of him. In 1828 he was succeeded at the Indian mission by Isaac Scarritt, and he removed to an Indian village near the site of Plainfield. In 1832 he was appointed to Chicago. At Conference the following year, by a majority vote, the preachers were recommended to wear straight-breasted coats, but Jesse Walker, as well as John Sinclair and Peter Cartright, voted in the negative. James Walker and William Roval favored the recommendation. Jesse Walker died Oct. 4, 1835, and is buried at Plainfield.

In 1825 Mr. Long, James Galloway, Greorge and Horace Sprague and Mr. Ransom came into LaSalle county. In the fall W. F. Walker came up the river to Ottawa in a keel boat.

was organized and became the latest territorial name of this vicinity. It embraced all the country from Danville to Chicago. Ninian Edwards was elected governor and served four years ; he was also our territorial governor nine years. It may be noticed, in passing, that in 1826 a motion was introduced into the legislature by Joseph Duncan, cashier of the unfortunate State Bank, to dispose of the Seminary Lands by public lottery, but it was lost in committee.

Two Quotations

Gov. Coles in his valedictory message says : " On the Fourth of July last, Thomas Jefferson, the renowned author of the Declaration of Independence, and John

Adams, its ablest advocate, ceased to live, thus sanctifying by their deaths a day rendered glorious by the most important event of their lives. That these two fathers and ex-Presidents, one of whom drafted the Declaration of Independence, the other seconded the motion which led to its adoption, both members of the select committee which reported it, and constituting, at the time of their deaths, two of the only three surviving signers of that memorable instrument, should have died on the same day, and that day the fiftieth anniversary since its adoption, is such an extraordinary co-incidence, that it would seem as if heaven were desirous of increasing our reverence for our liberty, and for the memory of those who were instrumental in achieving it. This melancholy bereveament has put the entire nation in mourning, and it has been a subject of regret that the sparse population of Illineis has prevented its citizens from publicly manifesting their respect for the memories of these two great statesman. But there is one painful circumstance connected with this event. Thomas Jefferson, after sixty-one years' service of his country, found himself involved to such an extent that nearly all his property, even Monticello, his favorite residence, where are now his remains, will have to be sold."

And Gov. Edwards, in his inaugural message, says, in relation to the State Bank, whose notes were then only worth two-thirds their face value : " Money is an essential element of power. Character is the means of obtaining money from others, when we have it not of our own. Character, therefore, is capital, and the loss of it is the most disastrous species of bankruptcy, since it may find us unable to help ourselves, and destitute of the means of obtaining help from others. The punctual observance of its engagements and a fair and honest fulfillment of all its authorized expectations are as indispensable to the character of a state as to that of an individual."

In 1826 the quarter section on which Ottawa stands was taken up by Dr. David Walker, father of David Walker, Esq., and of George Walker, first sheriff of La- Salle county. There arrived, also, Col. J. D. Thomas and James Walker. The latter afterward removed to Plainfield, The same year became a fur trader at Chicago, and soon after commenced those log cabin and Saganash House experiences which hav6 made his name famous wherever western history is known. Mark has chosen Newark, within the borders of Kendall county, as the spot on which to spend his closing days, and there, with his cherished pipe and violin and numerous friends, he lives in retired peace - one of our most interesting mementoes.

He was born in Detroit, April 25, 1800 ; came to Chicago with his family in a wagon, 1826, and joined his brother, John B. Beaubien, who had been a trader there since 1817, having purchased his residence of the American Fur Company. That year Mark planted potatoes and corn in the field along the river, embracing the court house square. In 1829 he opened a log hotel, on what is now the corner of Lake and Market streets, and the following year established a ferry at the fork of the river, paying a county license therefor. The rales were sixpence for a foot passenger and a shilling for a team. In 1833 the Saganash House a two-story frame, with green blinds, supplanted the log house. Saganash was the Indian name of Billy Caldwell, a Pottawatomie chief, and the grateful man left Mr. Beaubien a government reservation of eighty acres at the mouth of the Calumet, which is now quite valuable. Mr. Beaubien lived in the vicinity of Naperville eight years, from 1844. In 1852 he became keeper of the Chicago lighthouse, removing in 1861 to Naperville, and soon back to Chicago again. He has also lived in Manteno and Kankakee. He has raised a family of twenty-three children, most of whom are living and doing well, though scattered in different localities.