Kendall County, Illinois - Chapter 29: A Change for the Better, 1877

Chapter 29: A Change for the Better

N Little Rock Mr. Coon opened a blacksmith shop, near the present site of the church. Dr. J. T. H. Brady, of New York city, having received his diploma the year before, came west for his health, not intending to stay, but having made a claim on Big Rock Creek and liking the country, he remained there eight years, and then moved into Little Rock village, where he now resides. His brother, L. D. Brady, lives in Aurora.

A school was opened in a log building west of Mr. Mulkey's, afterwards Edward Hall's residence. Finally moved to a room below Hatch's blacksmith shop, opposite the church. Miss Lawson and Miss Lay, now Mrs. Faye, were the first teachers. One day in May a company of emigrants from Wayne county, Pennsylvania, passed through Little Rock, stopping only long enough to water and feed. They were the river in a southeasterly direction, they put up at Mr. Matlock's over night. Four families, containing twentyseven persons, were under the little cabin roof, but they all slept well, and in the morning hung the bedding on poles overhead. Since that morning, forty years have passed, and the boys have been wonderfully prospered. George and Lewis were then but twelve years old, but to-day George is worth f 50, 000 and Lewis a quarter of a million. He is president of one rail railroad and a director of another ; owns four thousand acres of land, and one-half or one -third interest in divers mercantile associations. As the centennial candidate of the Independent party for Governor of Illinois, he came near being elected, running ahead of his ticket.

The sons are Lewis, George H. and John F., at Piano; Aurelius, in Bridgeport, Connecticut ; Wesley, at Steward Station, Lee county, and Amasa, in Iowa. Two daughters, Mrs. H. B. Henning and Mrs. John Smith. One daughter, Mary, is dead. William Ryan, a settler of '36, was an old neighbor, and was the means of their coming to this county. Mr. Steward's claim was first taken up by John and Benjamin Evans.

The Hiddleson School

was opened in 1837. Mr. Hiddleson took the contract to build, daub and cover it for $80. It was in the Rob Roy timber. Joseph Lehman was the first teacher ; then Mr. Pike, Joseph Matlock, Otis Fuller, Y\\ J. Johnson, and Capt. Partridge. In a year or two the Holdridge school started, and soon drew all the patronage.

Rev. John Beaver, a Baptist preacher from Long Grove, was the first teacher. After him came Geo. C. Gale, Oscar Bush, a brother-in-law of Horace Greeley, Hanson S. Currier, Mr. Hibbard, and Thomas Hamilton. In 1845 the Ryan school took the scholars. Mr. Greeley, a nephew of the great Horace, was the first teacher. Then Fanny Tenney, Melinda Brayton, Oscar Bush, Julia Fuller, Phebe Darnell, Hattie Ryan and sister, Benj. Darnell, Emma Wheeler, Mary Walrath, Mr. Crawford, Richard Macomber, and Libbie Smith. This school ran until the opening of the Piano Academy, in 1855. In 1838 in a claim case was held before Judge Helm, in the Hiddleson school house. The Judge in coming there on horseback was mired in one of the sloughs that used to flourish in the shadow of that creek with the Scotch name, and in his wrath he gave the place the curious cognomen of " Busselburg," by which it was known for years. After the trial the jury were locked in the school house ; but while the court was telling stories in front, they adjourned through a side window to Hiddleson's cabin and had supper, and when the constable went to inspect his charge he was astonished from head to foot, a capite ad calcem^ to find them flown. But it was not long before he found them, and they found a verdict, and all was well.

On the eastern side of the county, George B. Martin, James McAuley, S. A. Ovitt, and Decoliah Toal were new settlers. The latter opened a tavern in Oswego. The former built the first frame house in Na-au-say, get-

Schools About Plattville

About Plattville the neighbors turned out, hauled logs and rived oak shingles, and built a school house on the town line between Lisbon and Newark. Miss Mary Titsworth was one of the first teachers. Afterwards, Miss Davis, Miss Cole, Mr. Truax, George T. Norton, Lydia Keith, Susan Langdon, Wm. R. Cody, Washington Bushnell, Lucius Whitney, Geo. A. Day, Catherine Chapin, and Electa Lewis. The locality was called ''AVisconsin" by the Lisbon people, because it was the State north of them, and is now the " Fourth Ward." Simeon Stevens kept a blacksmith shop across the road, where the present school house stands. The latter was built in 1857. The old one was on Reuben Hurd's land, and is now owned by S. K. Avery and occupied as a tenant house.

New settlers in the town were J. F. Moore, James Convis, Eli H. Webster, Galen Barstow, and George T. Norton. Mr. Norton this season taught the first school in the new frame school house in the latter having just been laid out by Lancellot Rood, as surveyor. Mr. Norton was followed by Mr. Stone, a son-in-law of Mrs. Sears, Mr. Andrus, Charlotte Bushnell, and Mrs. Miles Hills, of Minneapolis. The old house is now Parker's wagon shop.

The Lisbon Congregational church was organized March 22d, with twenty-two members besides the pastor, as follows : Rensselaer Carpenter, Eben and Stella Hills, Levi and Sarah Hills, John, Elizar, Calista, Mar- tha and Eraeline Moore, Charity Field, William Richardson, Calvin, Polly and Sarah Bushnell, Janette Wilcox, Eri L., John E. and Lydia Waterman, Maria Sears, William Harrison, Lewis and J. Allen Sherrill. Rev. Calvin Bushnell was the first pastor. He was followed by H. S. Colton, Alvah Day (who remained nine years), Israel Matteson, Daniel R. Miller, William Bridgeman, L. B. Lane, Charles Pratt, L^riah Small, Edwin Lewis, Mr. Curtis, and H. L. Howard. The meeting house was built in 1853.

The stage line in 1838 changed hands from Dr. Temple to Trowbridge, and soon after it was bought by the ubiquitous Frink and Walker. There was an up stage and a down stage each day, and occasional extras. Thus quite had taken place since seven years before, when Chicago was the nearest postoffice, and not even an Indian making a fortnightly trip on horseback to carry the scattering mail. If the panic of '37 had not come the country would soon have filled up, but from that date actual settlers had been fewer. The groves were nearly all surrounded with a cordon of farms, but the prairies as yet bloomed virtually unbroken. A traveler over the country to-day can have little idea of its appearance forty years ago, especially in summer time. The prairies waved with grass and were spangled with flowers of all hues - yellow predominating ; and the views extended for miles, as there were no fences, houses or shade trees to break the vision. The groves were full of underbrush and berries and dense with shade, while the tallest trees along the edges became well known way-marks by which the traveler directed his course. The far away tree tops, on the opposite horizon from each settler's cabin, became as well known to him as the stakes of the rail fence around his door-yard. Wild fruits and wild game were equally plenty. Groups of deer browsed alonor the water courses, or stood wonderinsrlv on the edges of the groves, gazing at the smoke from the white man's cabin, or at the oxen as they drew the old wooden plow or the V harrow across the field, and perhaps in their poor way (i. e., the deer) trying to comprehend the change that was coming over their land. Prairie chickens in abundance made love on the grassy knolls in the spring, and fattened in the fall, and as there were no game laws, they were shot and snared by scores. Quails were not the feeble remnant that divide up in pairs now-a-days, but they went in flocks, and were as abundant as the hazel thickets they hid in. Wild turkeys gobbled in the thicker woods, but were harder to catch. Badgers burrowed in the sand banks, and prairie wolves howled half the night, and skulked cross lots in the morning, trotting slowly along and stopping and turning around occasionally as if they were as innocent as the dew drops under their feet, and had both taste and time to enjoy the top of the morning, before the sun was up. Snakes were numerous, and along the timbered sloughs the passer-by was now and then startled by the whirr of the coiled rattlesnake. But both pleasures and annoyances of the pioneer class have gone to return no more. The prairie is cut up with roads as regularly laid as the streets of a city ; the view is brok- en by shade trees ; the forlorn badger has gone west, and the bank where he burrowed is planted to corn ; wild fruit must be sought in the orchard, and game can grow only half as fast as it is wanted, and is protected by law ; the groves are honey-combed by clearings, and the tall beacon trees have been made into posts. All is changed - and it is a change for the better.