Kendall County, Illinois - Indians, Groves and Prairies, 1877

Indians, Groves and Prairies

r Y 1830 glowing accounts of the fertile Illinois prairies began to spread more extensively through the older States, and a tide of emigration set in, most, however, settling far-# ther south than Kendall county. A famous

John Dixon was one of the twelve original founders of the American Bible Society, and in 1830 settled where Dixon now stands, on Rock river. His wife and some of his family were killed during the Indian troubles, and he was never himself afterward.

In the spring of the same year Abraham Trumbo, father of Mrs. John Armstrong, settled east of Ottawa, and was joined in the summer by Matthias Trumbo, father of Mrs. Joseph Jackson and Mrs. West Matlock.

August 4th, 1830, Chicago was laid out by authority of the canal commissioners, and lots were sold. The north side of the river was solid timber, and John Kinzie cleared a patch for a cow pasture. Madison street was the city limits. A large pond occupied part of Court House Square.

were daily visitors, for their numbers had not then been lessened by emigration. The Pottawatomies were a fine race of men physically, and as an average were more intelligent and peaceable than either the Sacs, who lived over the Wisconsin line, or the Winnebagos, who inhabited the country along the Rock river. Black Hawk was the Sac chief; Big Thunder was the Winnebago chief. His headquarters were on the Kishwaukee, at Belvidere.

was the Pottawatomie chief, with headquarters at Aurora, and a smaller camping-ground and favorite residence at the mouth of Waubonsie creek, at Oswego. He has been well described as "a giant in size and a devil in nature." As strong as a grizzly bear, and as ignorant and barbarous as the dogs that followed his ponies, he was dreaded by his people and feared and avoided by the whites. Liquor, no doubt, made him worse, for he drank immoderate quantities of whisky whenever he could get it, but he was naturally harsh and vindictive. He beat and murdered his wives so habitually that perhaps it may be said that one of the poor unfortunates was sooner or later left behind in the soil of every campingground. His bark wigwam, at Oswego, covered a quarter of an acre of ground, and in a hollowed stump outside his squaws ground his corn, with a sweep and pestle. He claimed to have eight hundred ponies, and some of them were superb stock.

An Indian encampment was a novel and yet a dirty sight. Lazy men, homely, working women, ponies, dogs and children. The dogs were half wolf, apparently as useless as the men, good for little but to bark, play with the children and follow the ponies. Wherever they encamped for a season, blue grass sprung up the season following, and those patches became both field and pasture for them. The squaws planted corn there, and the ponies pawing away the winter snow, nibbled there. Such places were always in the shelter of the

There was very little underbrush or second-growth timber in the groves, as there is to-day. The prairie fires kept it down. The old black oaks on the uplands were often useless to the settlers, so gnarled and tough were they from the constant fires of their younger days. As a consequence, groves were so open one could see through them, and see the Indians as they filed over the prairies beyond them. When the fires ceased, the groves began to spread, so that there is more timber in the country to-day than there was fifty years ago. The same cause has doubtless operated to produce our

Accordino; to the first, prairie soil is not adapted to the growth of trees. But in answer to that, we find trees readily grow when planted. According to the second, lack of moisture is the cause, since it is claimed more rain falls along streams and marshes than on uplands. But trees when planted find moisture enough. According to the third theory, prairie fires were the cause, and this was the current theory among the early settlers. It is a curious fact that a fire which will destroy the last vestige of life in a tree, even burning the roots out of the ground, will let the grass roots escape unharmed, and the next crop will be more luxuriant than before. But for the streams and marshes which protected them, we should probably have had no groves, and but for the fires we should probably have had no prairies. So all things have been shaping for good, and are tokens of the Divine Hand, which first created and then prepared and preserved the country for the working race that occupy it. In this countv the new settlers were limited to five men.

Peter Specie

They were unmarried, and kept house for themselves in their own little cabin, with nothing but reports to molest or make them afraid. It was known that there was a general dissatisfaction among the Indians, but the reports of intended hostilities were too distant and vague to be alarming to pioneers who had lived among the Indian people a large part of their lives.

Early Settlers

came to Vetal Vermet's in search of a home, and staying with him over night, passed on toward the Fox river, and made his claim in the timber below Newark, far away from any neighbor. He then returned to Ohio for his family, and with them and a friend by the name of L. Stewart, arrived at Vermet's again at midnight of September 12th. They stayed with Mr. Vermet until the middle of October, during which time they sowed some winter wheat and cut and put up a stack of hay on the edge of the Big Slough. Then removing to the claim they lived in a tent until the log cabin was ready, about November 1st, when, work being done, Mr. Hobson went out exploring again, and selected the site known as Hobson's mill on the DuPage river as a new claim.

The succeeding winter was a hard one for the pioneer family, but they survived it, and when the Indians commenced making sugar in the spring they moved first to Vermet's and then to Scott's, at Naperville, near their new home. Walter Selvey, a son-in-law of Mr. Dougherty, came that year, if not a year or two previous, and settled on a quarter section of the Seminary land.

Nine Families

in the county - Dougherty and Selvey on the south of Holderman's grove, Vermet on the knoll at the southwest corner. Weed next to him, and Hawley on the north, Countryman in Kellogg's grove, Hobson in the Newark timber, and Lawton, Sweet and Specie in the Aux Sable timber. But Lawton and Countryman were

Several new counties had been formed out of the broad acres of Vermillion, and the remainder was divided January 16th, 1831, by the organization of Cook, LaSalle and Putnam. Little Putnam with four townships, now one of the smallest in the State, was forty-two miles long. Cook was great ; beginning ten miles south of Joliet it reached to the Wisconsin line, seventy-eight miles. It was named after Daniel P. Cook, our representative in Congress, who had rendered the Chicago villagers grateful to him for his instrumentality in securing the alternate section grant for the canal.

was forty-eight miles square, the northern boundary being the town line between the upper and middle row of townships in Kendall county, passing close to Yorkville. Thus the north part of our county was left out as unorganized, but that and all the remaining territory north of LaSalle county to the State line was for the present attached to that county. Thus it included the present counties of LaSalle, Grundy, Kendall, DeKalb, Kane, McHenry and Boone, and a part of Marshall, Lee, Livingston, Ogle and Winnebago. The county seat was at Ottawa, eighty miles over prairies and swamps from Stephen Mack's trading post, at the mouth of the Pecatonica. But scattering traders did not care to vote, and usually dispensed their own justice.

Coroner ; and John Green, James B. Campbell and Abraham Trumbo, County Commissioners. At the first meeting of the commissioners, March 21st, David Walker was appointed Clerk, and the county was divided into three election precincts. Kendall county was in the third, embracinti; also Grundy, Kane and McHenry. The was held at the house of Vetal Vermet, on the historical knoll by the prairie grove. John Dougherty, Edmund Weed and William Schermerhorn were the judges. Whether or not any came from Woodstock or Marengo or Harvard Junction to vote, is not recorded, but probably not. The Kendall county settlers, however, had an official opportunity of meeting together and talking over their prospects which were undoubtedly improved. Several new comers were there, too, on that second day of April, who had not been in the precinct long enough to vote, but were interested in the matter of prospects. The convenience of the groves, the richness of the soil, the advantages for stock raising, the probable trouble with the Indians, the locality of desirable claims, memories of far away friends, and incidents of frontier life, were all discussed, and then on foot or horse-back, or with the ox team, they separated to their lonely cabins.