Kendall County, Illinois - Chapter 24: The Year of Corner Lots, 1877

Chapter 24: The Year of Corner Lots

IGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRty-six was the year of inflation and emigration, when the strong arm of the State, projected railroads and dug channels of rivers, to encourage emigration, which came West in a steady and enthusiastic stream. Every man's farm was a possible site for a town, and corner lots were as plenty as paper dollars. The hectic flush of a commercial fever overspread the face of the entire State of Illinois. The dazzling example of Chicago had much to do with this, for they had in two years converted a miserable village into a city of several thousand inhabitants - and it could be done everywhere. Speculators bought up all the land they could find, expecting to lay out town sites on their purchases, and public meetings were held and speeches made in favor of a system of internal improvements, which were soon adopted and begun. At Peru, on the Illinois river, a village of but one shanty, lots were held at $2,000 each. Four miles below Ottawa, on the river, is a long mass of limestone, called Buffalo Rock, because it is said the Indians used to kill buffaloes by driving them over the edge. It is inaccessible from the surrounding plain except at one end. On this rock a town plat was laid out by Benjamin Thurston, and recorded April 14th, 1836. It was called Gibraltar. And to crown the climax, four lots were actually sold, realizing $50.75. At

Nelson Messenger, from Ohio, built the shop which still stands on the corner north of Coy's store. His boards were sawed at Schneider's, and the poles for rafters he obtained of Geo. Hollenback. It still stands, a deserted relic of days long passed. Mr. Messenger used to furnish the government surveyors with charcoal to fill the mounds at section corners. At the same time, Walter Stowell put up a tavern where the hotel stable now stands. Heman Dodge occupied a house on Coy's corner, now used by Mr. Coy as a store house.

During the summer, a lot of Indians encamped on the edge of the village, on the flat below the Institute, and remained several weeks. They had just received their annuity, and were fast livers while it lasted. They paid for all their purchases in silver franc pieces, and when they were exhausted, traded a pony at the store for a barrel of whiskey. When that was used up, and their medicine man and his helpers had dug all the roots and gathered all the herbs they wanted in Big grove, they stole the pony and departed.

Avoiding Corduroy Roads

Mr. Booth sold to John Litsey, just then from Kentucky, and now the President of our Old Settlers' Society. The two families lived in the same cabin during the winter. Mr. Litsey moved on his present farm in 1846, and in 1850 was able to enter eighty acres adjoining, at government price. John Worsley, from Massachusetts, took up the present Worsley farm, east of Big grove. His son, Geo. H. Worsley, worked for several years for Mr. Prickett and others south of the grove, and died two years ago.

Peter Newton, William Smith And James Rood

came together from Broome county. New York. People along the road as they came would call out, " Michigan ?" "Illinois," was the reply. Mr. Smith was originally from Massachusetts. He bought his claim and a poor log house of a Frenchman, and resided on the same place forty years. Mr. Newton settled in the timber near Sheridan. His son, A. D. Newton, our present sheriff, moved to Newark in 1847, and kept tavern on George B. Hollenback's old site. This party came by boat from Huron, Ohio, to Toledo, to escape a notorious stretch of corduroy road over what was known to emigrants as the Black Swamp, in Michigan. The rest of the way was overland, to Piatt's, Holderman's and Mission Point, to Rood's.

Other settlers in Big Grove were Mr. Bradfield, Mr. Hampton, Daniel Neff, Elijali Barrows, Mr. Collins, Jared Bartam and John E. Waterman. Mr. Collins changed the name of Duck Grove to Collins' Grove. Mr. Bartam, of Onondaga county. New York, kept the tavern at Holderman's. His widow, married again, lives at Lockport. Her daughter is Mrs. Henry Cody, of Lisbon. Mr. Waterman first settled on the Martin place near Lisbon, and afterward went to Holderman's. In November, John C. Phillips' dwelling house on the Southwick place, and Clark Hollenback's new barn on the Abbot place were the same day. The men and most of the neighbors were attending a lawsuit at Ottawa at the time. Mr. Phillips was deputy sheriff. His stock of provisions and all his furniture were burned. His wife, who was washing clothes at the brook at the time, being shut out of the house, took cold, and after lingering two years, died. It was currently believed at the time that there was foul play at the bottom of it, in connection with the lawsuit.

George Duckworth and family settled at Big Grove, where they remained two years, and then moved to Lisbon, where they now reside. Rensselear Carpenter came at the same time. He is now living near Chatsworth, Illinois. Also a French family, named Devereaux. He was a silversmith, and afterwards removed to Joliet, where he died, and the family went to Racine. Also Daniel Dwyer.

Lewis And Allen Sherrill

Oneida county. New York, came that year. Allen returned soon after ; Lewis remained, and is to-day one of the first farmers in Kendall county. There are a few larger land holders, but he is the only man in the county who owns and farms an exactly square section of land.

Jesse Jackson Arrives

At Plattville, a son was born to Mr. McCloud, and Mr. Piatt being privileged with the naming of it, called it after himself, Piatt McCloud, and gave the little fellow a cow as dowry. A school was started in Mr. Piatt's cabin that year. It was taught first by Phoebe Ferris, and the following year by Thomas Cotton. Benjamin Ricketson arrived from New York ; was elected County Judge in 1853. Levi Hill's log tavern moved out from Holderman's, was the first house in Lisbon. Rev. Calvin Bushnell missed the honor by only a mile, as he put up a frame a mile south of Lisbon in the fall of 1835.

Jesse Jackson

and family arrived at Ottawa, having come all the way by boat from Brownville, Pa., in twelve days. His family consisted of Elmas, afterward Mrs. Groves, now dead; Samuel and Jonathan, both dead ; Mary, now Mrs. Fletcher Misner, of Millington ; Joseph, now in Millington; William, in Minnesota ; Rebecca, now Mrs. Holston, and Elizabeth, now Mrs. Hanna, both of Indiana. Eight children in all. He was met at Ottawa by Samuel Jackson and Mr. Markley with a horse team and three ox teams, and the family and goods escorted to the double- log cabin at Milford. The distance is twenty miles and they passed but four cabins on the way. Jesse Jackson bought out Mr. Markley, and that fall the saw mill was started. It met a great want, and for ten years it ran night and day, and sometimes, by necessity, on Sunday. There were at times two thousand logs on the ground, and the mill would be six months behind on orders. But the gang saws of Michigan and Wisconsin at last outstripped it, and left the aged frame to bleach in the sun until a year ago, when the spring freshet bore it away on its bosom to rest in a watery grave. Soon after Mr. Jackson arrived an attempt was made to establish a post-office there, but it was placed at Holderman's instead.

Henry Elderding the same season built a corn cracker at Millbrook, Dr. Gantz, a botanical physician, from Virginia, built a house on the corner of the Millbrook and Millington roads, below Mr. Paddock's. Adjoining him, on S. McMath's place, was John Green, father of Lemuel Green : and on the Russel place was Rev. William Royal. Going east on the same road were E. W. Willard, now of Chicago, Wm. W. Pickering, now of Boston, and Stephen and James H. Bates, now of Iowa.

Willard sold to John Cooper, and Pickering to John Sherman. Heman Winchell, Jr., settled on the farm near Fox Station, on which he lived nearly forty years. He died at Bristol, 1866.

Stephen and James Harvey Bates lived on the river below Mr. Grover's. Smith and Tuttle first took up the claim and sold it in Chicago to John Bates, who came west about 1833. Stephen Bates was a bachelor. Abram Brown, of Big Grove, then a boy, was their nephew and lived with them. He came in the fall of 1834 and stayed with Lemuel Brown in his Oswego cabin during the winter of 1835. It was hard times, and the boys often went barefoot daytimes and at night slept under the snow that sifted through the oak shingles of the cabin roof.

Mail Twice A Week In Little Rock

Luke Wheelock opened a blacksmith shop on the site of Little Rock village, on the creek by the cheese factory. He came out, like many others, without his family, and soon after returned for them. At the same time Philander and George Peck opened a store near where Dr. Brady's barn now stands. Afterward Geo. Peck with E. R. Allen opened business in Aurora and died there. Philander Peck removed to Whitewater, Wisconsin, and thence to Chicago, where he opened a dry goods jobbing house with Albert and Henry Keep, the well known railroad magnates. The house was finally known as Harmon, Aiken & Gale. The Little Rock postoffice was kept at Peck's store, and twice a week the tin horn of the Frink & Walker stage, running between Chicago and Dixon, woke the echoes of the grove, and scattered settlers after their weekly paper, or the precious and coveted letters from their far away eastern homes.

Cornelius Henning

was from Rensselaer county, New York, and arrived here July, 1836. The family are large land owners, - owning some two thousand acres of land around Piano alone. Hugh B. Henning is dead ; Jones, Denslow, and C. J. are still living, near Piano : also a daughter, Mrs. Otis Latham. Two other daughters are, Mrs. John Eldredge, in Nebraska, and Mrs. Charles El dredge, in Kansas.

William Hiddleson

him as good a claim as there was in the west. He came, saw it and bought it. and lives on it still. _^ It was the old Cox claim, and part of the house built by Cox in 1833 is in use still. The fire-place was ten feet wide, and logs were hauled into it by horses, in at one door and out at the one opposite. George H. Rogers and William Noble came with Hiddleson.

Eber M. Shonts

and Thomas Welch landed at Yandalia in 1835, and wandered up here and claimed a strip nearly a mile long, below Mr. Mulkey's, on the east side of Little Rock timber. They went back, and returning again the following season, found the claim occupied by Franklin and Oliver Culver, who vielded to the orioinal claimants. In 1837 Mr. Shonts sold to Elijah Pearce, and removed to the present homestead on Big Rock. George W. Rowley, John W. Gallup, William Ryan and James Scott were other settlers. Also Ashley and King, claim sellers. Mr. Scott went to Wisconsin, from whence he went to Scotland and came out with a Scotch colony.