Will County Courthouse

Joliet, or as sometimes styled, and very appropriately, too, the " Stone City," is situated on both sides of the Des Planes River, in a beautiful valley, with its suburbs extending back on to the bluffs like the wings of a great army. It is thirty-eight miles from Chicago, and connected with that suburban retreat by two of the greatest railroads in the State of Illinois, and has also water communication with Chicago via the Illinois & Michigan Canal. If Joliet is not a " city set on a hill," it is certainly " founded on a rock," for the entire surface upon which it is situated is stone. It is well laid out, the streets broad, with excellent sidewalks, and bordered with handsome trees. Many fine residences and business houses, built of stone - products of its own enterprise - are to be found here which would adorn any city. Its railroad facilities are excellent ; having the advantage of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific to the West ; the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis to the South ; the Chicago, Pekin & Southwestern to the Southwest ; and the Michigan Central to the East. These roads have been of much advantage in building up Joliet ; and their machine shops located here give employment to a large number of men. A full sketch of the railroads and of the canal is given in the general history, and so will not be repeated here.

Passage source: The History of Will County, Illinois, Containing a History of the County ... a Directory of Its Real Estate Owners; Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; General and Local Statistics ... History of Illinois ... History of the Northwest .., published 1878.

The names of many of the early settlers of the city have already been ^iven in the settlement of the township, but no mention made of them beyond the date of their coming to the county, their works and their deeds being left for this chapter. As common in townships containing county seats, most of the important history of Joliet centers in the city of the same name. Here many of the more stirring events of the times transpired, and here, as just stated, much of the important history has occurred. Charles Reed is generally regarded as the first settler in the city of Joliet, or was, at least, the first to lay claim to any portion of the land in the original city. He had made a claim on the southsast quarter of Section 9, upon which, in 1833, he built a small log house, west of the river, and very near where the National Hotel now stands. Reed was from Indiana, and had settled in Reed's Grove about 1831; but, attracted by the water power, came to this place, as already noted, and commenced preparations for building a mill. In the Fall of 1833, James B. Campbell and James McKee purchased the " floats " granted by the State to Silvia and Rachel Hall, two girls who had been captured by the Indians, as narrated in the general history. Campbell located his float in the early part of 1834, on the east side of the river, embracing a part of the present city of Joliet. On the 13th day of May, the Surveyor's certificate was filed, and on the 10th of June, 1834, the plat was recorded and the town christened to "Juliet," for Campbell's daughter, it is said ; a name it bore until 1845, when it was changed by act of the Legislature. President Van Buren and his Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Paulding, while on a tour through the West, stopped at " Juliet," and, noticing the difierence in the name of the city and of Joliet Mound, urged the people to have the former changed to correspond with the latter, which was done as above stated, by act of the Legislature, and approved February 26, 1845. The act further provided that all additions subsequently laid out " shall be known as additions to Joliet." In January, 1834, McKee, after purchasing the claim of Reed, located his float on the west side of the river, and laid it out into one-acre lots. In April, 1834, Charles Clement bought one acre from McKee, for which he paid him $125, and on which he erected a story and a half building, the first frame house in West Joliet. Bailey Brothers had sometime previously built a frame house on the East Side.

Passage source: The History of Will County, Illinois, Containing a History of the County ... a Directory of Its Real Estate Owners; Portraits of Early Settlers and Prominent Men; General and Local Statistics ... History of Illinois ... History of the Northwest .., published 1878.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Joliet Township - 16,216 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.