Oaklawn Farm

St. Charles township and the village of St. Charles were, in the early days, the most important part of the county, and for years St, Charles was the center of the general activities of the northern part of the district. In an early day this township was the seat of many Indian settlements and the trails of the redmen were numerous. One of the most noted was known as "Waubonsie's trail," which tV>llo\ve(l tiie ri\-er on tlie west baiii-c and took in aU the prominent springs in that vicinity. As late as 1845 this trail was plainly visible across the land afterward owned by C. D. Wing, J. D. Brown and C. H. Haines. Another trail led west from Chicago to Rock River across Fox river near where the St. Charles dam now is and followed the ravine west and over the prairie. The third came from the northeast and a fourth diverged from the Chicago trail near Wayne Station and crossed the river at the bend now known as Five Islands, about a half mile below the present Illinois Central railroad bridge.

Passage source: History of Kane County, Ill., published 1908.

Other settlers of 1835 were Solomon Dunham and his son-in-law, Mark W. Fletcher (afterward a prominent politician in the county) ; Joseph Pemberton and Nathan Perry. The claim of Solomon Dunham has since expanded into the fine Dunham stock farm near Wayne, which comprises over one thousand two hundred acres of land. Miss Alzira Garton died in the fall of 1835 and was buried at Brown Grove. This was the first death in the settlement.

Passage source: History of Kane County, Ill., published 1908.

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 St. Charles Township - 3,815 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.