Kendall County, Illinois - The Flood and the Panic, 1877

The Flood and the Panic

IGHTEEN hundred and fifty-six opened with a very cold winter - one of the coldest, indeed, that has ever been known. During the first two weeks in January, the thermometer several times indicated thirty decrees below zero, and for two months there was continuous cold weather and good sleighing. Ice was formed as far south as the Gulf of Mexico. In the spring, great floods followed, and the Oswego bridge over Fox river was carried away. In the Presidential election, one thousand, nine hundred and seventy votes were cast in Kendall county, and John C. Fremont ran ahead of both Fillmore and Buchanan five to one.

The "Kendall County Courier," our first proper county paper, was started in Oswego by H. S. Humphrey. In Newark, a barrel factory was opened by Mr. Moore, where Hull's stone shop now stands. In Big Grove, a steam saw mill was erected by Lewis Robinson. It was first started as a horse mill in 1852. In 1859 it was moved to Newark, and afterwards the machinery was taken to Tennessee.

Schools And Teachers

The Lisbon Center school was opened in the present house in 1856. Before that three terms were kept in John Litsey's house, and several terms in a little house half a mile east of the present one. The following names of teachers date from 1848 : Sarah Niblo, Mary Brickley, Zuba Tuttle, Mary Williams, Mary Knox, Melissa Havenhill, 0. L. Toft, C. B. Alford, R. C. Macomber, T. Maoomber, Effie Andrews, Mary Brown, Huldah Bedell, Hannah Fosgate and Josephine Henry.

These lists of names are of course most interesting to those who knew the persons, and to such each name is a fountain of old memories which can never perish, and which will yet be more precious as they are recalled in the twilight of life, in the years to come.

The Sleezer school. Big Grove, was opened on Havenhill's corner, in an old dwelling fitted up. After standing there ten years, it was moved one mile east, and after ten years more was rebuilt and moved to its present site, half way back to the old corner. The teachers have been : Lottie Seymour, Diantha Adams, Mr. Erickson, Helen Lewis, Lewis Bishop, Miss Wells, Wright Adams, Juliet Seymour and S. Ament.

The Lewis school, town of Kendall, has had the following teachers : E. J. Lewis, Etta Martindale, J. J. Foltz, Mary Meeker, Lida Hallock, Augustus Collman, Lida Knowlton, Eugene Morgan, E. Moulton and Frank Lord.

The Shepard school, in Kendall, has been taught by the following teachers : Lucy Brown, Mary Ann Haigh, George Bishop, Hattie Wood, James Bishop, Ed. Kern,

The Henderson school, Seward, has had the following teachers : William Jennie, William Green, Libbie Angel, Lavonia Ketchum and Miss Carroll. Twelve years before a school was kept in one of Frink and Walker's houses, near the Patrick tavern, but it was not permanent.

The Agricultural Fair that had for two years previous been held at Oswego, was held in 1856 at Piano. At the State Fair, 0. B. Gulusha, of Lisbon, took the first premium for the best half acre of potatoes - yield, one hundred forty-one and a-half bushels. Financially the county was flourishing ; " hard times " had taken their flight. Money was plenty, and people used it freely. Prices were good. The following are Aurora quotations : opened with the most destructive freshet ever known on Fox river, caused by a heavy rain on February 6th, which melted the snow and broke up the ice and set the entire winter's crop free. All the bridges from Batavia to Ottawa were swept away, and the river was covered with boards, boxes, furniture, chickens, and debris of all kinds. At Oswego, Parker's saw mill was taken at a loss of three thousand dollars, and Rowley & English's lumber yard suffered a loss of one thousand dollars. At Millington half the village was flooded ; water was waist deep on Vine street, in front of Watters' store, two blocks from the river. The freshet extended throughout the country, and in other places many lives were lost. Houses were undermined and carried away while the inmates were still asleep, and they knew nothing of their danger until the hungry waters swallowed them up. Such another freshet has not been known in this country ; yet each winter the materials for such another accumulates, and it is a striking exemplification of the goodness of the providence of God that these materials are dispersed gradually, and rarely allowed to go out with the terrible and fatal rush of 1857.

Panic Of 1857

PANIC OF 1857, the exhaustion following the excitement created by the incoming of railroads, in 1852, and fostered by the Russian war in 1854.

People lived too fast, and being too far removed from their base of supplies had to wait in the cold and hunger of bankruptcy until the supplies came up. It was not, therefore, a panic, viz : a mysterious fright, but sprang from a real and intelligible cause, and the effect lasted up to the beginning of the civil war. These lessons have been so often repeated that surely they should be well learned, and all who heed them when the next wave of prosperity comes will have an opportunity of learning the cash value of wisdom. The year, however, was marked in this county by several some of which were short lived and others became permanent improvements. Among the former were the " Kendall County Journal," started in Piano by A. Sellers. It ran but a few months. Also the " Kendall County Clarion," published in Bristol by W. H. Clark. An act was passed February 16th, authorizing Jeremiah J. Cole and Levi C. Gorton to build the " Oswego Branch Railroad " from Oswego village to the Station ; but the close times that came on immediately defeated the project.

Two grist mills were erected; one at Bristol, at the mouth of the Blackberry creek, by Lane & Arnold, and the other five miles further down the river, at the mouth of Rock creek, by

Frederick Post

Mr. Post was a Prussian, having come to this country in 1850, and was a man of energy and means. He threw a dam across Little Rock creek for his grist mill, and another across Big Rock for his saw mill ; opened up the roads that at present pass through that romantic, but forsaken looking region, added a lime kiln of eight hundred bushels capacity to the smaller kiln already there, and drew so much patronage to the place that it bid fair to be as important a point for the whites as of old it had been for the Indians. For tradition makes the lonely ravines to have been a favorite Pottawatomie camping and council ground. But the tide of circumstances that for awhile flowed to, eventually flowed away from the spot. The saw mill dam was washed out in 1869. During the year the same circuit. The pastors were : W. Royal, J. S. Dauid, Mr. Morse, D. L. Winslow, Mr. Batchelder, Mr. Wright, S. F. Denning, F. H. Brown, W. H. Smith, H. Reed, Mr. Hibbard, Sanford Washburn, George S. Young, Benjamin Close, Robert Bibbins and G. Libby. Mr. Springer was in charge when the Plattville house was built. In former years Revs. Lumry, Phelps and Flowers used to preach in the school house and in private houses. Also the Piano Methodist church. The district was formerly embraced in the Indian creek circuit, and Rufus Lumry, Wesley Batchelder and Obadiah W. Munger were successive preachers in charge. In 1845, the name was changed to Little Rock circuit, and the following were the preachers : Wm. Royal, Seymour Stover, Amos Wiley, Charles Batchelder, Stephen R. Beggs and Elijah Ransom. In 1857 the house was built at Piano, and the subsequent preachers have been Henry Minard, I. H. Grant, T. B. Rockwell, W. H. Fisher, W. H. Strout, J, T. Hanna, Sanford Washburn, Fred. Curtis and J. B. McGuffin.

Of the schools which date from that year, the following may be grouped here : The Pearce school, Oswego, which has had the following teachers : A. Snook, Mr. Baker, Mr. Martin, Mr. Day, Jennie Hoyt and Delia Miner.

The Scott school, Little Rock, which has had the following teachers : Catharine Tenny, Charlotte Cromwell, Mary Clifford, Olive Rowley, Benjamin Darnell, Caroline Tenny, Sarah Favor and Samuel Davis.

The Serrine school, on the river bank east of Millington, was an off-shoot from the older district, and ran but a few years. Miss French, Miss Walker and Miss Jackson were teachers.

Church Buildings

were erected : - the Millington church, North Lutheran church and Lisbon Baptist church. The pastors connected with the latter up to 1870, were N. F. Ravlin, Mr. Bassett, Mr. Scott, Mr. Wolfe and J. H. Kent. All the churches were visited with such deep revivals of religion as had not been known among them for fifteen years. And this notwithstanding the condition of the roads, which were unusually bad - worse than they had been since 1843. The reverses in business met with the preceding year, and the peculiar financial distress of the country, were favorable, as such troubles always are, to devotion and spiritual life. So that many could thankfully say, with Psalms, 119:67, "Before I was afilicted I went astray, but now^ have I kept thy word."

Anton Conrad Shot

Anton Conrad in Na-au-say during the winter. The difficulty originated while cutting wood in Aux Sable Grove. Brennen, to be revenged, came in the night and shot Conrad through the window, killing him, and then like a madman stayed around firing off his gun until morning. He was tried and sentenced to be hung, but afterward adjudged insane and taken to the asylum at Jacksonville. On the breaking out of the war he was released, and went into the army.

Not much of note occurs in the history of the year 1858. Business prostration continued and the wheels of society moved very slowly. The Becker school, Naau-say, was opened, and the first teachers were Nancy Burns, Maggie and Louisa Cooper and James Buchanan.