Kendall County, Illinois - Chapter 31: The Underground Railway, 1877

Chapter 31: The Underground Railway

^MONG the settlers of 1840 were J. S. Bibbins, Dr. Temple, and Dr. D. B. Jewell, to Big Grove ; Elisha and Elijah Misner, to Fox ; Truman D. Austin, to Na-au-say ; Elisha Hills, to Lisbon ; Josiah Ferris, William Hoze. Thomas and Harrison M. Smith, to Oswego ; Henry Cryder, William Bryant and J. F. Beane, to Seward ; Henry Abby, Peleg Jones, J. T. West, Enos Ives, Rev. Mr. Woolson, Free man Gifford, and Edward Hall, to Little Rock ; Reuben Hunt, Samuel Roberts, Mr. O'Brien, W. 0. Parker, William Briggs, Mr. Fishell, Curtis Beecher, C. W. Davis, Edward S. L. Richardson, Wesley W. Winn, Jonas Borton, and others, to Bristol and Oswego. Mr. Winn was our county surveyor several years.

Reuben Hunt settled next to Lyman S. Knox, and his was the first house on tlie site of Bristol Station. Mr. Parker built a stone store at Oswego, and did a large business for several years. Nathaniel Rising owned the mill. A Methodist class was organized in Lisbon, by Rev. E. Springer. The members were Solomon Wells and wife, Jervis Moore and wife, James F. Moore and

Anion Heacox. No other religious movements marked the year. Settlers were slow in coming in. and improvements and changes were few. The prairie grass grew a foot high in the village streets. Between Holderman's and Marseilles there was not a single house. Between Oswego and Plainfield there were but two houses.

by the birth of the famous whig party, in opposition to the Andrew Jackson party. Also by the coming in of the Mormons from Missouri. They built Nauvoo, in Hancock county, and after seven years of bitter strife and much bloodshed, emigrated to Utah. The population of the United States that year was seventeen million, and it was the last census in which negro slaves were returned as owned and worked in Illinois. Considerable interest was created over the question of the northern boundary of the State. The boundary line for some other States had been paralleled with the southern end of lake Michigan, but when Illinois was organized, the boundary line commenced " at a point on lake Michigan in latitude 42 degrees, 38 minutes north." In consequence, in the early part of 1840, Gov. Doty, of Wisconsin, agitated the question of claiming the northern counties of Illinois, and attaching them to Wisconsin, and several mass meetings were held by his friends in those counties. But the plan fell through.

The year was ushered in by one of the largest spring freshets known. Fox River flooded all the lowlands along its course, and at Millington two acres of splendid logs were carried away. Only two such freshets have been known since, in 1857 and 1868. But the last

Murphy On The Hard Times

By the census of 1840 there were in the state of Illinois four thousand negroes, of whom one hundred and sixty were slaves : not all confined to the southern end of the State, either, for there were four slaves in Lake county and one in Kane county. The population of La- Salle county was ten thousand, but the men outnumbered the women five to three. Kane county, with six thousand seven hundred, was more evenly divided. The internal improvement system had been abandoned, with the exception of work on the canal, and this year $147,000 was paid by the State as damages to contractors for cancelling their contracts on eight railroads and three river improvements. Times were very close, and the miserable wild cat currency of that day tended to make them more so. Mr. Murphy, of Cook county, in

A Report

" Instability pervades every department of business. The value of property fluctuates, not according to the regular laws of trade, and all kinds of business seem to be regarded as a species of lottery. The banks have made more issues of paper than they have specie or means to meet. They cannot pay three dollars with one by any legerdemain of the counter or till. During the expansion of the currency, property rises ; during contraction it falls, thus giving the banks a glorious opportunity of making fortunes from the public. They can make property dear or cheap. They can create a fam- ine in Israel and have corn in Egypt to allay it, but will take care to sell the corn at their own prices. Our paper circulation in 1837 was one hundred and fifty millions, but a single fiat from Threadneedle street, in London, demolished the fabric and exhibited to the astonished gaze of American freemen the whole array of banks suspended or bankrupt and the whole people ruined. Failures abounded, commerce was crippled, manufactures suspended, wages reduced, multitudes out of employment, values diminished, debts increased, and the barriers of commercial honestj destroyed. The depreciated paper was bought up by the banks at ruinous discounts. Such is but a faint outline of the effects produced by our banks during the late suspension.

The Presidential Campaign

Gen. Harrison was the Whig candidate, and as he lived in the West, the log cabin and the hard cider barrel became the symbols of his party. Many a drunkard dated his downward course from the "hard cider campaign" of 1840. Horace Greeley, then a rising young man, published a campaign paper, called the '- Log Cabin," and it had an immense circulation. Songs were multiplied about " Tippecanoe and Tyler, too." They were elected by heavy majorities ; but Harrison died one month after his inausruration, and to the dissjust of the Whigs, Tyler forsook the policy of his party.

Slavery And Abolitionism

The county celebration of the Fourth of July was held in 1840 at Newark. The appointed speaker did not come, and Rev. H. S. Colton was called on, and in the course of his impromptu remarks referred to slavery. At once there was a tumult, and jeering cries were flung at the speaker from every side. James Southworth was chairman of the day - a staunch abolitionist himself - but he was obliged to interrupt the speaker, telling him that for the sake of peace they had made an agreement among themselves not to agitate the subject. Bui Colton could not repress his convictions, or amplify on the gloriousness of our national freedom - with the freedom left out - so he left off" his speech in the middle. The very name of slavery or of

Abolitionism

ABOLITIONISM in those days was enough to set any ordinary crowd on fire, and strange as it may seem, the great majority of the people even here in our own Kendall, as well as throughout the West, were so conservative in sentiment as to be virtually pro-slavery. An avowed abolitionist was despised, and even hated ; but they were not wanting, nevertheless. The blood of Elijah P. Lovejoy, like the blood of John Brown since and William Morgan before, was prolific of champions of the faith for which blood had been shed. The underground rail road, so called because of the secresy with which runaway slaves traveled over it, had stations and helpers in almost every village. Among the helpers were W. H. and William Lewis, Mr. Hallock, George Barnard, Abel Gleason, Zenas McEwen, Levi and Eben Hills, Ole Oleson, Edward Wright, H. S. Colton, B. F. Alden, Dr. Calvin

Wheeler, and others. In the northern part of the county the route lay through Little Rock, generally putting up at Dr. Buck's. Reuben Johnson, at Jericho, kept the next station east, and Mr. Beveridge, fjither of the Governor, the next station west. The latter had his barn burned in consequence. Like many other barns it had probably secreted more than one fleeing negro, and if that was a crime against God and humanity then the hated old frame was righteously consumed. But the anti-slavery feeling grew so rapidly in the years that followed, that Owen Lovejoy, that fearless champion of human liberty, who, when he first ran for Congress, received only 250 votes, was afterwards elected by 10,000 majority from the same Congressional District.

Peter Stewart, of Wilmington, kept a famous depot, and was indicted on complaint of a neighbor before a grand jur^' at Joliet. Soon after a party of seven negroes came along, and Mr. Stewart, taking them in his wagon on his way to Chicago, called on his neighbor and introduced his passengers as southern planters going north for their health. The other was so taken back by Stewart's boldness, and so astonished at the increase of the business under persecution, that when afterward by the help of friendly lawyers the indictment was quashed, he did not try it again.

Sometimes, however, by the force of circumstances, the opposition of those unfriendly neighbors was broken down. They had hearts as well as others, and their feelings of humanity were occasionally too much for them. Once to a conservative man's house came three fugitives, black as three coals. They told their hardships, and their fears, and their hopes, and trusted that he was a friend. He was not, but in their presence he speedily became so, for his politics entirely gave way. His theory was straight, but his kinship for mankind was strongest. He fed and lodged them, and with his benediction sent them on their way. A similar experience happened to old 'Squire Walker, of Plainfield. He was a strong opposer of the abolitionists, and often declared that helping slaves to their freedom was no better than horse stealing. But on one occasion a fugitive came to his house. The poor runaway was breathless with hurry and fear, and begged with broken entreaty for assistance in his extremity. Here was a sharphorned dilemma for the 'Squire. How could he repudiate his own creed ? He was a law abiding citizen, and it was his legal duty to send back the fugitive. He was a democrat, and it was his political duty. He was a Justice of the Peace, and it was his official duty. He had been loud in his protestations against the " railway," and it was his personal and consistent duty. But there was the trembling black man, and to that argument the 'Squire yielded, fed him and sent him on. In a little while the pursuer came, but strangely enough could get no satisfaction. The slave had been there, that was known, but where he had gone no one seemed inclined to tell. The slave catcher urged, and at last the other openly slaughtered his principles and declared : " I'll have nothing to do in the matter, it's between you and your God and the nigger."

Dyer, a brother of George Dyer of Joliet. He was a bold, fearless man, and did efficient service in the cause. He was acquainted with the friends in the city, so when the trains arrived, viz : farmers with loads of wheat or pork, and a fugitive aboard, they reported to him and he found safe lodging places for the living freight. At one time the slave hunters captured their game, a colored man, and locked him in a room guarded by a sentinel, while they were obtaining the necessary papers to legalize them in taking him away.

Afterward, a southern planter, who was in Chicago, hearing the story, so admired the Doctor's bravery that he presented him with a gold-headed cane in commemo-