Kendall County, Illinois - Chapter 26: The Year of the Panic, 1877

Chapter 26: The Year of the Panic

E NOW enter upon the year 1837. The United States public debt had been paid, and there was besides a surplus in the treasury, which was refunded to the States. And yet in the face of this seeming prosperity, a stringency in commercial affairs spread over the entire nation, as a cloud shadows the landscape on a sunny day, and involved business enterprises of all kinds in one common ruin. The banks throughout the United States, with few exceptions, in the spring of this year suspended specie payments ; yet by virtue of energy and a good deal of credit, most of the Illinois internal improvements still went on. The first railroad in the

First Railroad In State

State was opened this year, just forty years ago. It was in Morgan county, between Meredosia, on the Illinois river, and Jacksonville, about twenty-five miles. It was laid with flat " strap rails," and at first a locomotive was put on, but this was afterward superseded by horse and mule power.

March 4th, Chicago, having a population of four thousand, was incorporated and became a city, although its future commerce was so far future that its merchants were obliged to import flour from Ohio to supply their customers. The weather seemed in sympathy with the money market, for the spring was backward, and it was late before the crops were in the ground.

On May 22d, there was a snow-storm, and quite an amount of snow fell, which, though it remained but a few hours, was yet a phenomenon unusual enough to be remembered. In

Big Grove, '

Luman Preston, from Middlebury, Vermont, made a claim of one hundred and sixty acres, probably the previous summer, on the prairie east of Newark, where his widow still lives. He, too, was a prairie pioneer, and was laughed at bj his grove neighbors, who believed he could not make a cabin stay there. He had been living in Jacksonville two years, and Josiah Seymour came from that place with him and took a claim on the hill west of Mr. Harrington's. He is now in Nebraska. Mrs. Preston kept an interesting diary during the nine weeks' journey from Vermont, and for some time afterwards. She says : " Wherever we stopped, we were surrounded with people, anxious to know where we were from and whither going. While passing through York State, one old man accosted us with : ' What part you from?' ' Middlebury, Vermont,' we replied. ' Varmount, Varmount,' he answered ; ' I've heern tell o' that place. Let's see - what State is that in ?' We came to Jacksonville in 1834. The next year a company came up in a lumber wagon, taking their own provisions, and prospected through to Chicago. They thought the region around Georgetown the finest they saw ; indeed, quite the heart of the country ; so we all decided to move up here. For the first few years we saw hard times. We were often in danger of being burnt out by prairie fires, and had to plow furrows and burn spaces around us for our protection. Our first stovepipe I made myself out of oak boards, after soaking them well in salt water to make them incombustible. It lasted a month or two. Once, while we were waiting for Jackson's mill to be finished, we ran out of flour and meal. Some of the neighbors did not taste bread for weeks. Ephraim Mott and family lived with us, and we made corn meal with a grater and jack-plane, and lived like kings." John Hough, from New York, claimed next south, now David Gunsul's farm, and his brother, Jerry Hough, came next, on S. C. Sleezer's place. Both are dead. Other settlers were : George D. Barrows, New York ; Harlow G. Wilcox, Madison county, New York ; Ephraim Mott, William Haymond, Ohio ; and Capt. A^an Meter, now in Minnesota. He opened a brick-yard near Lott Scofield's. There was a brick-yard also at

Drowned In Fox River

Boy en's, worked by Pat Cunningham. Henry Shadley, from Ottawa, worked there. He was drowned in Fox river, in June, and his was the third grave in the Millington and Newark cemetery. A. D. Newton helped dig it. The second one buried was Miss Heath, from over the river.

The second store in Newark was opened by Mr. Booth on the site of Erwin's blacksmith shop. It still stands, as good as ever, and is Mr. Erwin's dwelling house. Charles McNeil bought George Hollenback's second building, and Tilton place. The Newark precinct house was built during the summer, and used not only for elections, but for schools and meetings. Miss Diantha Gleason was the first teacher. Before that, school was kept over Hollenback's store, by Mr. Neese, and in a log cabin in the grove, near Gridley's, by Mrs. Sloan.

hollenback's school house was built in the centre of that grove during the fall, and Henry Bosworth, now living on Lester Taylor's place, was the first teacher. The following are among the early teachers in that district :

In 1845 the district was divided, but the original house still stands in all its primitive glory, and is used as a dwelling by William Stone, about two miles west of Pavilion, on the road leading to Newark.

John Aldrich

from Orleans county, New York. Mr. Aldrich had a family of five children, and in 1856 removed to Iowa. Wilber White had the only house on the prairie, on what is now Moses White's place. Thomas Pike was at the mouth of Rock creek, where Post's Mill now is, and owned a very large claim on the west side of the creek. A daughter is now Mrs. Willet Murray, of Ottawa. Samuel Finch lived where Mr. Wilder does. His son, Darius Finch, was here before. On the south side of the river Alanson Robinson settled on Daniel Bagwell's place, and Thomas Serrine on Matthew Budd's place. They were brothers-in-law, and both from Dutchess county. New York. James H. Whitney, sonin-law of James Southworth, was on the Charles Krouse farm. He bought part of his claim of Mr. Montgomery. Ole Oleson owned what is now John Boy en's and Isaac Lott's. It was the first claimed by William Brooks, who sold to Oleson, and who still lives and resides at Sandwich.

In Big Grove Mr. Coombs built a shanty in Stowell's timber lot, chinking the crevices with leaves and earth. Mr. Stowell came upon it one day and notified the neighbors, who nearly all belonged to the "claim society." They assembled on an appointed day, and chopped the logs of the shanty into firewood just as Coombs arrived with his family. They admonished him, and sent him back in peace.

Buried In A Well Rev. Jepthah Brainard

William Paddock and John Gardner, and families, George Paddock and Cole Gardner, single men, came in a body from Bradford county, Pennsylvania, and settled in the town of Fox. The families came overland, but sent their goods around by water. From Oswego, New York, to Ithaca, they were hauled on a horse railroad - wooden rails, capped with strap iron. Mr. Paddock settled on the present Paddock place, a mile from Newark, and Mr. Brainard settled at first on the Sweetland place, south of Newark, but soon after bought the farm now owned by John Phillips. While digging a well on that place in the fall of 1837, after he had sunk it in the sand some thirty feet, it caved in on him, filling up a foot above his head. His boys uncovered his head and ran for help, and notwithstanding the sparse population, there was soon gathered a large company of people, some of whom came several miles. A number were waiting at Jackson's saw mill, and were on the spot in a few minutes. Two hogsheads were first lowered, as a curbing against the sand, and a neighbor happening along with a load of twelve feet boards, these were also used. While they were digging, the sand caved in again worse than before, and yet the imprisoned man was not killed. The work went on all the afternoon, amid the most intense excitement, and Mr. Brainard was pulled out at last uninjured. So tightly was the sand packed that when he was uncovered to his boottops he still could not get out. It is unnecessary to say that he abandoned that well and used good curbing for the next one. The incident made a deep impression

The first preaching in Newark was by Rev. Royal Bullard, in Hollenback's store loft, in 1837, the preacher standing behind a chair for a pnlpit. But when the precinct house was built, as it was common property, preachers of all denominations followed each other, just as they did in most of the early school houses throughout the county. The practice made cosmopolitan hearers. It enabled the community to judge of the relative merits of preachers and distinguishing characteristics of denominations. It trained the powers of criticism so that the youngest could tell to what denomination a preacher belonged, by some peculiarity of manner, which long hearkening to the shrewd observations of their elders had enabled them to detect. In those days, ''nothing to wear" kept no one at home. When it was announced that there would be at " half-past ten," or "at early candle light," the wife went in her calico dress and her husband in his Kentucky jeans, hickory shirt and straw hat. The boys wore suspenders of unbleached shirting, and were barefoot, while the lively young man donned a starched shirt, unmarred by a vest, and the spacious bosom to best advantage displayed as he sat upon one of the scholar's desks to save room, the admiration and envy of the little boys.

But the past is gone. The parents have laid down the weapons of their warfare, and the weather-stained marble marks the place where they " sleep in the val- ley." The spinning-wheel is in the garret, the grain cradle, with rusted edge and broken fingers, is in a corner of the barn loft, and the hub rings of the wagon that the oxen drew to meeting are at the bottom of the waste iron box. The young man who sat on the desk has gray hairs, and his family, one by one, are leaving him, and in the dusk of the evening he thinks of the time when he. too, shall pass away, and his white memorial stone shall rise by the side of the brov/n ones in the graveyard. The little boys are active men, and other little boys are going to school, but there are no schools like the old. The hazel brush patch has long since been cut down, and play-houses must be built of vulgar boards, and the creek where the minnows sped away, frightened at bare-legged boys, is dry. Days of old, farewell !