Kendall County, Illinois - New Enterprises, 1877

New Enterprises

MONG the enterprises of the year 1872 were the starting of the Yorkville "iVe^^s," April 2nd, since removed to Piano, and the Millingion ^' &terprise," in December. The Oswego '' Vidette," after a short existence, was taken to Aurora. The Oswego " Bald Hornet'' also had a short life. A prospectus had been issued for the Newark ^'' Journal^'" to be a large, seven column paper, but it never appeared. The Newark " Clipper,'" however, still continues to put in an occasional appearance.

At Yorkville, Hutchinson's ice house was built - one hundred feet square, with a capacity of seven thousand tons. It was expected to ship thirty tons daily to Chicago during the summer.

At Plattville, the last of Mr. Piatt's flowing wells were sunk. They were located by Mr. Harper, a water wizard, of Plattville, with a forked apple twig held fork downward under his nose. The wells are at the store, house and barn. The deepest is fifty-one feet ; the third, thirty-one feet, and flows unceasingly through a two inch pipe.

The Millbrook Shops

were commenced jn 1872, by Edward Budd, as a factory in general, and of " gophers " or corn cultivators in particular. He also manufactured riding plows, and does a business of some twenty thousand dollars a year. Both the gophers and the riding attachment to the plows are Kendall county inventions, and have had a large sale.

They have effected a change in the operations of the field since the days when the double shovel plow and the cast iron mouldboard were the reliances of farmers. Indeed, farming, with other employments, is fast losing its drudgery. It remains but to substitute some other motive power for horses, and the day in which it will be done is doubtless approaching.

Millbrook owes much of its prosperity to the enterprise of the Budds. Tunis Budd was here in 1844, from Duchess county, New York. He bought the farm where Edward now lives of Stephen Bates. Mathew came in 1846, and Edward and Jacob soon afterwards.

No notable accidents are to be recorded. The previous summer Andrew Widdup was drowned in the river at Millington. There was, however, a tragedy at Oswego in September. Samuel West shot and killed Mark Newberry. It was a repulsive case, caused by scandal, and it was difficult to decide on which party to bestow sympathy. The murderer was sentenced to the penitentiary for life.

Incidents And Accident Op 73 Early In 1873

a peddler, calling himself J. Johnson, was murdered just over the line in LaSalle, near Mr. Terry's. The body was carried down into the Mission timber, where it was found. The murdered man's real name was afterward found to be Samuel Davis, and he was supposed to be the moneyed man of the company. Two years afterwards, a man sentenced to be executed in Germany, confessed on the gallows to having committed a murder near Sheridan, Illinois. Undoubtedly it was the same man, followed thousands of miles and overtaken at last by justice.

December 24th, on his eighty-first birthday, Marcus Misner was thrown from his buggy by being tipped over a little bridge, and lived but two days.

During the year, a county " Teachers' Association" was organized. Also, a "Farmers' Association," Lott Scofield being President. The members of the latter will be better known under their national title of " Grangers." This organization grew like corn in summer, and became an important, and in some States a controlling element in politics. It called general attention to many abuses, and in some things accomplished a needed reform.

The Young school, Bristol, was opened in 1873. The following have been teachers : William Wing, Merrill Fellows, Mrs. Rathbun and Grace Putney.

trotters and thoroughbreds. One imported Clyde, from Scotland, weighs a hundred weight more than a ton, while a Shetland mare and tiny colt would both of them hardly weigh four hundred pounds, and are worth a dollar a pound.

is the death of Newton S. Grimwood, then local reporter for the Evening Journal^ who accompanied Prof Donaldson in his last balloon ascension, July loth. They went up from Chicago, were carried over the lake out of sight, and were never ao;ain heard of alive. A bodv believed to be that of Grimwood was found on the Michioran beach, and buried. His father, William Grimwood, of Bristol, is an old settler of 1843.

The Seward town house was built in 1876. Unfortunately, there is no center road in that township, and the voters have not yet been able to agree where the hall shall stand, whether north or south of the centre of the town.

In Little Rock village, a Union church, costing $2,- 400, was completed. It is open to preachers of different denominations. Early preachers in that vicinity have been : Baptist - John Beaver ; Protestant Methodist - Mr. Woolston and Mr. Rogers ; Episcopal Methodist - Dr. Arnold and Mr. Batcheldor ; Presbyterian - Henry Bergen.

Narrow Gauge Railroad Millington Manufacturing Enterprises

the financial crisis of that year retarded further operation until 1875, when grading was begun from Chicago, going west. It enters the city on Twenty-second street. At the present time the road is completed to Fullersburg, nineteen miles, and most of the grading is done to Warrenville. Another route has been surveyed via Plainfield, and it is not yet determined which shall be chosen. This latter survey was made in 1876, and is said to be the eleventh railroad survey that has been made over the Plainfield prairies, - and they keep their mail stage yet. The Millington were opened in the spring of 1876. D. W. Clark, of Park Ridge, Illinois, was the patentee of the process. The works were ninety-five by one hundred and twentyfour feet ; the two enameling kilns, twenty-four feet in diameter and thirty-five feet high, and holding twentythousand bricks each, including the saggers, or cases of fire clay. The works were built by a stock company, at a cost of $13,000. The first process was to melt the enameling material together in a small kiln, - this was the essential part of the patent, - after which it was ground in a mill, mixed with water and the bricks dipped in the solution. Four or five bricks were placed in each sagger, and the whole subjected in the great kilns to an intense heat for thirty-six hours. But before the first lot were burned the works took fire and burned down, and have not been rebuilt.

The Boot And Shoe Factory

S. W., and E. Jacobs, Superintendents. They use up the tannery stock, except the harness leather, and do a business at .present of $25,000 a year. The work is systematized as in the largest establishments. The leather first goes to the cutter, who cuts out the fronts, backs and soles ; then the crimper shapes the fronts and uppers to the foot ; the fitter sews the fronts and backs to£;ether ; the bottomer puts on the soles; the finisher finishes the soles ; the treer finishes the fronts ; and the packer puts up the finished boots in cases of twelve pairs each, assorted sizes.

The Piano Baptist church was ors^anized in 1877. Its history dates 'back to 1836, when Rev. John Beaver organized a little church in Jacob Crandall's slab house, in the edge of the timber, west of the present site of Piano. The constituent members were : John Beaver, Enos Ives, P. Clark, A. Bush and J. Crandall, and their wives, old Mr. Darnell, and others. It did not continue, however, and in 1860 another church was formed in Piano village by Rev. Mr. Kinne. That, too, after some years, ceased to be active. The present church was gathered by Rev. L. Steward, who is still the pastor.