Kendall County, Illinois - Chapter 30: The Land Sale, 1877

Chapter 30: The Land Sale

HE FIRST shipment of wheat from Chicago was made in the year 1839. Sixteen thousand bushels were collected and sent around the lakes by schooner. This was also the year of the organization of our neighbor county of Du- Page, w^hich was at first proposed to be called Michigan county.

conducted by Mr. Giesler, who went a-foot and carried the mail on his back. He lived in the house now occupied by Pease Barnard on Asa Manchester's land. Manchester came in that season from Oswego county, New

Improvements In Plows

York ; also A. P. Southwick, from Clinton county, New York, and Nelson D. Sweetland, M. D., father of our State's Attorney, from Cayuga county, New York ; Lyman Smith, William Lutyen and Cornelius Courtright came together from Luzerne county Pennsylvania. Smith and Lutyen bought the Barnet building in Newark and kept tavern for some time. Smith died after being here eight years. The Lutyen family are Lyman and Clifford, of Pontiac, and Mrs. George AVatson, Mrs. D. A. Munger and Mrs. Wm: Wunder, of Newark. Elmer Mallory settled above where S. C. Sleezer now lives. The Edgerton school house was built in Gilbert Edgerton's yard, and the same frame is still used. It is better known as the " Fern Dell" district. Early teachers were Miss Longhead, Miss Day, Abram Wing, Alonzo Hallock, and Arvilla Brown.

Christopher Misner was among the new comers at Millington, and was in time to help his brother Fletcher dedicate his new house, which is his residence still. It was the third house in the place - the other two being Jackson's, and the house of Jefferson Tubbs, the sawver at the mill. Mr. Misner, that season, got a lot of from Ohio, which were heralded as a great improvement over the old wooden mouldboard with wrought iron shear. They were shipped by river to Utica, and brought up by team. They took well and did good work, but the next spring they would not scour at all, and were discarded as a failure. Three years afterward Mr. Misner made the first wrought iron scouring plow, from patterns obtained at Chicago. They were soon after made by Whit- beck, at Chicago ; Jones, at Naperville ; McCollum, at Aurora; and at Elgin, Lockport and other points. The steel mouldboards at present in use did not come in until 1850.

Col. William Cowdrey, New York; Daniel Cooney, Pennsylvania ; A. B. Smith, Ohio ; Walter Loucks, Montgomery county. New York. The Wormley school house was built of two inch plank set up endways and pinned to the sills. School had previously been held at Mr. Devoe's house, near the great spring (the largest spring in the county). Miss Susan Townsend, now Mrs. Lehman, taught. Then it was held in John Wormley's granary, and was taught by Elizabeth VanVliet, and Dorcas and Adeline Hopkins. And in the school house, Maria Miller, Augusta Fletcher, Charlotte A. Crandall, Norman Sexton, Lyman G. Bennett, John Tobey, Clia Landerson, Virginia Hoyt, James Hughes, Clara Warner, George Kellogg, and George Robinson.

In Bristol

Horace Barnes, Owen Kennedy, Mr. Clapp, Thomas Penman, Lyman Childs, Robert Hopkins and Thomas McMurtrie. The latter was from Scotland, and opened the first blacksmith shop in the town, on a lot given for the purpose by Lyman Bristol.

More Settlers At Bristol

Mr. M. says : "I had the ague almost constantly for the first year, and as I could get no quinine I was obliged to hunt up weeds and barks, which helped me but did not cure. But after a year it wore off." But in the case of many of the settlers it did not wear off so soon. Mr. Clapp ran the saw mill for Mr. Bristol, and was afterward killed by the logs rolling on him. One log was moved, and the rest, being on a side hill, started, and there was not time to escape. The old corn mill was also run, but was not so mnch patronized as other mills were near by. Clapp's log house stood near the site of Mr. Lane's barn. There was a ford across the creek, over the river at the same point, coming out on the south side near Mr. Graham's. Besides the buildings mentioned there were the dwellings of Godard, Wheeler and McMurtrie, in a line on the hill, and H. S. Colton's, opposite Wheeler's. Colton's was afterwards bought by E. S. L. Richardson and cousin for a store. It is now Dr. Bedding's residence. The west side of the village was heavily timbered, so far east as the middle of the public square, at which point the clay soil changed to black loam, showing that the prairie and the wood had kept their relative positions for a very long time.

Calhoun and Innis Grant came to Lisbon, Ephraim Bronk and G. W. and E. Cooney to Na-au-say, and J. P. VanCleve and Jacob Patrick to Seward. The latter bought of Henry Case Stevens the tavern started by Aianson Milks, and afterwards known as the "Patrick Stand." It was known in '39 as the " Wolf tavern,'* as Mr. Stevens had a stuffed prairie wolf for his sign. Some years afterwards Norman Grey kept it. Mrs.

Grey was a renowned housekeeper, and her cooking was famous all along the line. It was on the stage route from Joliet, and Frink and Walker had stables there for their horses, and a number of houses and farms. There was an up stage and a down stage every day, besides frequent extras, and an immense amount of travel. One day when there had been a break down, seventyfive passengers and employes were gathered at the tavern for dinner. The stage drivers got $12.50 a month and board.

A cemetery was opened on Frink and Walker's land, in the field south of the present school house, and many were buried there, but it has since been abandoned. Several of the bodies were removed to the new cemetery near the Ware school house when that was opened in 1857.

The last event of public importance in 1830 was the cominjx of the land in the market in November. It was a time of much stir and excitement, for it was now or never with every settler who wished to retain his land - with the exception of those who had bought Seminary lands or Indian reservations. Money was extremely hard to get, as the times had not improved since the crash of two years before, and the two hundred dollars with which to pay for one hundred and sixty acres of land WHS harder to raise than one thousand dollars would be now. Many a poor man for the sake of his little farm, the only source of his family's bread, was obliged to make such extreme sacrifices as perhaps none of the later generation have ever known. Speculators too, like birds of prey, were eagerly watching for opportu- nities to pick up improved farms at government prices and re-sell them to the owners at a large advance, or turn them out of their homes. It was to guard against those pitiless enemies that the settlers in each locality clubbed together, promising to stand by each other and see that each had his proper rights. The first thing before going to the land, office was to settle every difficulty and to agree on what portion of land each would enter. Then a plat of the lands was made out and put into the hands of a competent person who was to bid them off and pay over the money - for the government did only a cash business. Almon Ives was the chosen bidder for the eastern part of the county, and Lancellot Rood for the western part. Each of them loaded a strong box full of silver on a wagon, and with a picked squad of men for guard, toiled through the sloughs to Chicago. The bidding had formerly been done in the open air, on a vacant lot, corner of Clark and Randolph streets. But so soft was the ground that as the crowd increased it actually sank, and they removed to the lake shore, and then into a building. One man stood at the foot of the stairs with a stout cane, and another at the top, and sometimes other guards between, and no one was allowed to pass except on legitimate business. ." Can I pass up?" a sleek looking stranger would say. ''Yes," was the reply, "but if you bid you will take the consequences." And generally he concluded not to run the risk. If occasionally a tract of land was knocked down to a wrong bidder he was prevented from going up with his money until after such a lapse of time that the sale was void. When all were done the authorized bidders gave the lands over to their constituents according to the original plat, and they in turn re-deeded to each other to conform their farms to the new survey lines. Those re-deeds are the earliest entries on the Records in the Recorder's ofl&ce. The first date after the land sale is March 4th, 1840.

On that day Elisha Morgan, Joseph Matlock and William Harris each deeded to Almon Ives small portions to straighten their boundaries. Occasionally a settler was found who would not keep to the agreement, and refused to re-deed to his neighbor, in which case the other neighbors, sometimes from miles around, turned out, and Mr. Recalcitrant w^as obliged to come to terms. A case is mentioned further alono- in this work.