Cortland Township

Cortland Township

CORTLAND comprises one of the six townships lying upon the eastern border of the county. It is bounded on the east by Kane County, on the north, by Sycamore, on the south by Pierce, and on the west by De Kalb Townships. It is well watered by the Kishwaukee River and its tributaries, and has a large body of timber land in the eastern part, the remainder being a rolling prairie. The Chicago & Northwestern Railroad passes through the southern part of the township, while the Sycamore branch of the same road runs due north from the village of Cortland to Sycamore, a distance of four miles.

The first settlement was made in 1835 at what was subsequently termed Ohio Grove, from the fact that the greater number of the first settlers in that neighborhood were from the State of Ohio. Among the pioneers of the township were George W. and Isaac Gandy, John and Perry Ellet, David Wood, Henry Smith, Hale Perry, Alvin Dayton, Ralph Wyman, John Champlin, Peter Young, Elias Hartman, the Crossetts, Springs, Norcutts, Kites, Lowries and Osgoods. There may be others. All these it is believed settled in 1835 and 1836. They all settled as near as possible to the borders of Ohio Grove.

About the same time James and Joseph Roberts settled at a small grove in the center of the township, to which was given the name of Lost Grove, from the fact that it was separated from the main body of timber. These brothers for many years entertained travelers.

The township settled slowly until the completion of the railroad, much of the land even at that time being owned by the Government. The early settlers could not bear the thought of locating upon the prairie.

A postoffice was established at Ohio Grove as early as 1841, Samuel Spring, at that time being Postmaster, the receipts of his office for the year amounting to $2.22 Mr. Spring was succeeded by Homer Roberts, who held the office for many years.

At Luce's Corners, one-half mile south of the present village of Cortland, a number of houses had been erected, a tavern and store opened and a postoffice was established there about 1850, with Chauncey

Luce as- Postmaster. The office was continued until the completion of the railroad, when it was moved to the station which had been established by the railroad company, and is now the Cortland postoffice.

The first name given the township was Richland. This was soori after changed to Pampas, a name suggested by J. R. Crossett, from the resemblance of its prairies to the pampas or plains of South America. In 1864 the name was changed to Cortland, the name of its village.

The first school in the township was at Ohio Grove and held in a log house erected for the purpose. The first teacher was Rev. Castle Churchill. He was succeeded by Mary Ann Hamlin.

In his report for the year ending June 30, 1884, George I. Talbott, County Superintendent of Schools, gives the following interesting items in regard to the schools of the township : There were eight school districts, each having a frame school-house, the total value of which was estimated at $9,980. Of the schools one was graded and seven ungraded. There were 589 persons under 21 years of age, 299 being males and 290 females, of whom 421 were of school age, and of which number 341 were enrolled in the public schools. During the year 18 teachers were employed, the average salary paid begins- $31 per month, the highest being $68 and the lowest $15. The tax levy was $3,240.

The record of Cortland in the war for the Union is honorable in the extreme, 134 having enlisted from the township. Of that number 16 lost their lives in the service: Ruthven Russell, Alonzo Russell, Robert Close, W. Stark, Charles Flapper, Spafford Deford, John Young, Charles F. Bannister, Charles V. Peck, Oliver Wilson, Emory Marshall, George H. Gould, T. D. Packard, W. H. Rose and Morris R. Wilson. For war purposes the township raised $12,103.

There are two mills in the township - one at Cortland and the other at Maple Park. The latter was built in 1882 by Nathaniel A. Hail. The building is 60x24, with i6-foot posts. There is one run of buhrs and a corn-sheller. It is a feed mill, run by steam, with a 3o-horse power engine. A good busiis done here.

Porter S. Coolidge has the credit of being the first to bring Norman horses into the township, and probably the first in the county. Mr. Coolidge was also

'Oatman Bros., of Dundee, 111., built a cheese factory near Maple Park, in the spring of 1884. It is a commodious frame building, with a stone basement. The factory is run on the dividend plan, though some milk is bought. Alfred Hall is cheese-maker, and William Morrison butter-maker.

In 1884, according to the local assessor, there were 22,068 acres of improved land in the township, valued at $326,061, an average of $14.77 Per acre. The town lots ware valued at $24,773; personal property, $100,515; a total of $451,349. The State Board of Equalization reduced this amount to $400,- 727. There were many articles of personal property listed, among the items the following: Horses, 800; cattle, 2,857 ; mules and asses', 9 ; sheep, 198 ; hogs, 1,646; steam engines, 4; safes, i ; carriages and wagons, 454; watches and clocks, 327 ; sewing and knitting machines, 178; pianos, 23; melodeons and organs, 60.

CURING the month of January, 1855, the village of Cortland was laid out by Ezra and Maria Croft. The plat is located on the northwest quarter of section 29, township 40, range 5. In April, 1855, Samuel L. Parker and J. T. Tubby platted the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter of section 29, in connection with that laid out by Mr. and Mrs. Croft, the whole forming the original plat of the town. Two additions have since been made.

Previous to the building of the railroad, which was completed quite a year before the platting of the village, some half-dozen or more houses had been erected at Luce's Corners. Some of these were moved to the station and a village soon sprang up, which for a time bid fair to be one of the most important in the county. From the beginning for a num- ber of years it was one of the best points on the railroad for grain. H. S. Champlin and John M. Lawrence were the^first to engage in the grain trade. They were not partners, but each commenced about the same time in 1854. Other dealers soon established business here, among'whom were Mr. Arnold, George and Jerome Champlin, and I'ierce & Jewell. At one time it is said there were 17 local buyers, representing, probably, some half-dozen firms. The trade continued to be good until the completion of the Sycamore & Cortland Railroad, when it began to decrease, much of its trade from the north going to Sycamore. Pressed hay for a time was quite largely dealt in by Pierce & Jewell.

Horace S. Champlin and James S. Waterman, under the firm name of Champlin & Waterman, were the pioneers in the trade of general merchandise. They commenced business in 1854, and while they had the monopoly had a very large and lucrative trade.

Smith & Brown were the next dealers. After running about two years they failed, as the local rhymester put it, "Smith & Brown, they broke down."

Lawrence & Washburn and Mr. Woodworth might also be classed among the pioneer merchants of the place, commencing business but a short time after those already mentioned.

As stated in the township history, the postoffice known as Lost Grove was removed to the station in 1854. The following named have since held the position of postmaster: A. D. Brown, John Cadwallader, R. O. Joslyn, Theodore Loring, Marcus Washburn, I. Carpenter, Mrs. C. Sackett and Joseph Adams. The latter now holds the commission, but the business of the office is transacted by Mrs. Adams.

The school district in which the village is located was organized at an early day. There was a schoolhouse near the present site in 1841, the first teachers being E. Eaton and Maiden Jones.

There is but one religious organization in the village - the Methodist Episcopal. It was organized before the village came into existence. A neat church edifice was subsequently erected here. The present membership is 54.' Among those who have served as pastors since 1862 have been Revs. C. M. Webster, F. D. Corvvin, E. Smith, O. E. Burch, R. H. Wilkinson, N. O. Freeman, Frick, Swift, Samuel Hewes, Isaac Whitcomb and F. B. Hardin. The latter is the present pastor. In the winter of 1884-5 a revival was held in the church in which there were 40 conversions, and the Church greatly strengthened.

Alxnit 1855 a frame building was erected for school purposes on the north side of the railroad. The village growing quite rapidly, it soon became too small to accommodate the pupils in the district, and one was erected on the south side. It being impossible to properly grade the schools using two school buildings, the district, in 1867, voted to erect another building, larger and more centrally located. Accordingly the present building was erected the same year. On its occupancy the school was divided into three grades. Dwight Crossett was the first principal. Since that time the following named have served in that office: Mr. Watson, J. M. Whitson, C. W. Curtis, J. A. Vroman, J. L. Calland and L. S. Parsons, the latter being principal in 1884-5.

The village was incorporated in 1866. The President of the Board of Trustees, by virtue of his office, is also a member of the Board of Supervisors. The following named have served :

The Cortland flouring mills are owned by Goodall & Holdridge, who purchased the same in the fall of 1884. The mill was built about 1870 by Lovell, Smith & Craft, the village giving a bonus of $2,000. Lovell subsequently became sole proprietor, and sold to the present owners as stated. The mill has four run of buhrs, and is run by a 4o-horse power engine.

The butter and cheese factory of Wood & Delaney is one of the institutions of Coriland. It is considered one of the best in this region of country.

The best days of Cortland were previous to the building of the Sycamore & Cortland Railroad, still a fair business has always been transacted here. It is surrounded by a fine country, and only its proximity to Sycamore and De Kalb is in the way of great prosperity. In the beginning of 1885 the following business was represented in the place :

Source changes here: from Past and Present of DeKalb County, Illinois, by Gross, Lewis M, published 1907; 4,276 words in this source stream.

Cortland Township

W 1, Henry Smith. Akin Dayton. Ralph Wyman, John Champlin. Peter Young, Elias Hartman. Russell Crossett, Hale Perry. John, James' and Perry Elliott, the Springs, Norcutts, Kites, Lowries and Osg I- settled near the Ohio grove.

These Earmers all coming from Ohio, gave the grove its name. Of those old settlers only one is now living, John Elliott, who lives in Ohio. Russell Crossetl was the first person who was buried in Ohio Grove cemetery. In the year 1837 Mr. Eenry II. Gandy tame to join them, walking all the way from Ohio, to the home of Mr. Elliott in Ohio Grove. On his way into Michigan City. Indiana, he found three dollars and bought him a to finish bis journey. Liking the country, he sent for his wife. Mrs. Lucinda Gandy, who came here in the fall of is:;; with a brother of Mr. Gaudy's. driving a four ox team and leading one horse. She is now living at the advanced age of ninetytwo years. She is the oldest settler now living in -he town-hip of Cortland, and without a doubt, he Kalb county, ami her son. Francis M. Gandy. who was born .June -y, . 1845, is the oldest settler living in the township, who was born here. They buill a log house and made their chairs and tables from the trees. This farm, where Mrs. H. H. Gandy still resides, and the farm of Mrs. George M. Kenyon, are the only farms in the town-hip that has not changed hands.

The early settlers knew something of the hardships of the old times, having to make their rude implements to start farming. The plow was all of wood except a cast iron point: the drags were made of trees, with wooden pointed teeth in them. These, together with a cradle and scythe, were the only implements. Zenos Churchill, one of the pioneers, devoted his time to making the wooden plows. The log houses in Ohio Grove and the one built by the Roberts brothers in 1845, at Lost Grove, were about the only houses in the township at that time. These early settlers bad to haul their wheat to Elgin to be made into flour. Their only means of marking the corn ground was by driving an ox, dragging a log chain across the field, later using a single shovel plow, then a corn marker, then our present check rower. II. II. Gandy hauled the lumber from Chicago to build his first barn, fifty years ago, which is yet in constant use.

Those were days of hardship to the pioneer wife, she having to pick the wool and make it into woolen clothes for the family, spinning and weaving the flax to make linen cloth, bleaching the rye to make bonnets and hats - indeed, all their clothes were home made, even to their shoes. Mrs. H. H. Gaudy, who has lived in this township sixty-one years, well remembers the Indian camp not more than a mile from their home, and she tells that when Mr. Elliott came here in 1835 he often saw the Indian papoose in a box, nailed to a tree, this being their way of burial.

In those days there was no observance of Thanksgiving day and but few Christmas gatherings, their holiday gatherings being wool picking bees, quilting bees and corn husking bees. If any one was able to hire, the wages were from twentyfive to fifty cents per day. The only difference in money was, they used the silver sixpence and silver shilling. A good cow could be bought for ten dollars. Sixty-three years ago hogs were unknown in this township, Mr. Peter Young owning the first hog, and he did not have corn to fatten it, so he Id Mr. George Gandy fatten it on shares. Only a few horses were in the township then. A few of the pioneers brought two or three with them, but used oxen almost entirely for farming.

Dwight Crossett, the school teacher and farmer, took up his abode in Cortland in early days, and as his recollections of forty years of residence are indicative of what has transpired there in the last half century, we give to our readers the pictures as worded from the gallery of his memory. He says: I arrived in Cortland township in October, 1851, finding ii possessed by the Churchills, Cheasbros, Elliotts, Daytons, Springs, Joslyns, Lovells, Kenyons, Meekers, Gandys, Goulds. Reeds, Clarks, Youngs, Palmers. Smiths, McAlpins, Wards. Hopkins. Burrs, Arnolds, Crossetts. Champlins, Dows, Mattesons, Holdridges and others that T do not just call to mind. They were enjoying a veritable boom. They had gone through the long period of hauling their wheat to Chicago, some of them for twenty years or more, and getting home from their marketing with very little money, but now their tribulation was happily ended.

They had a market at their door, the railroad being built to Roehelle, and on account of the Crimean war wheat was worth a dollai and a half per bushel, and they could raise good crops of wheat. Land had quadrupled in value during the preceding year, money was plenty and good, everybody had dried "applesass" for breakfast, sugar in their tea, and they were the best feeling people on the face of the earth.

There were six schoolhouses in the township, the same little church near Ohio Grove that now stands, Cortland village being then in embryo, there being a small railroad, freight and office building there, a small, dashboard front store, in which Hod Champlin had a stock of general merchandise, with J. H. Rogers, the Sycamore vefceran merchant, as general manager, and three or lour other small buildings.

By the fall of 1856 Cortland had grown to be the best business point between Chicago and Roehelle. Two hotels had all they could attend to ; there were five warehouses for handling grain, two large lumber yards that sold all the lumber consumed in five or six townships, Sycamore included. It was in fact a lively business town. The leading firms at that time were Champlin & Walrod, grain ; Walrod & Boynton, general merchandise: Smith & Brown, general merchandise; A. L. Lovell did a very large lumber business; Tucker, boots and shoes; Woodly, shoe shop; T. Ricker, shoe making, with wagon and blacksmithing shops. The town also was headquarters for many carpenters and masons, Joe Adams, John Harkness, Abe Head, Harvey Jones, Adam Mather and many other carpenters lived here, while Parke Brothers were the chief masons.

The Ohio Grove church was then, as it has ever been, the central place for a large part of the people of the township to congregate. They had revival meetings there every winter, and it was during one of these meetings that the modern idea of worship was put forth - at least it is where I first heard it. Several srood brothers and sisters had tearfully told their experiences, and the young preachers in embryo had vied with each other in their speeches, when old Uncle John L. Cheasbro, the father of all the Cheasbros, arose in his place. He was a very large and wonderfully clean man, and was now dressed in a fine new suit of broadcloth, had just finished a nice new house: in fact, hail jumped in two years from a pinched condition to affluence, and this was his speech: "I promised the Lord a good many years ago that when 1 got able I'd serve Him.*' The gist of the remainder of the speech was. he felt the time had arrived and he stood ready and intended to carry out his part of the contract.

Champlin's Hall, built in the summer of L856, witnessed many memorable scenes. When it was finished it was dedicated with a 'lance, and what a company! "Hod," as everybody called him. was the leading citizen, McCormick's general agent for a large territory, an all-round hustler, political boss, a good promiser, very hospitable, ami had lots of friends all over the country, particularly in Sycamore, and they were all at his dedication dance. J. S. ami .1. c. Waterman, ( '. 0. and .T. H. Boynton, General Winters, Dr. Bryan, two or three Ellwonds. Harm Paine and almost all Sycamore who danced were there. There were enough brains and beauty at thai dance 1o creditably grace the inauguration of the governor of the 3tate. It was no dignified walk around. Gid Walentt fiddled and the company danced. The only thing I have seen in thirty years thai compared with that dance was .lush Whitcomb's cotillion party in the "Old Homestead."

There was no daily paper then. The Chicago Democrat once a week and the De Kalb County Sentinel comprised the literarj outfil of most houses, but religious discussion was rampant in e\er\ -hoc shop, store, and on the street. People weri long on doctrine in those days and had decided opinions on the question of universal salvation and everlasting damnation. The tension finally go1 so high thai an arrangemenl was made to have an exhaustive discussion of the whole subject in Champlin's Hall h\ the leading champions of the two ;ides in this section of the country. The 1'niversalists summoned Elder Sanborn, a Sycamore preacher, to uphold salvation. Eldred Coltrin, a powerful Freewill Baptisl preacher from Blackberry, was chosen to refute the arguments of this adroit and plausible emissary of Salan. The school, which was held in the hall with a daily attendance of seventy-five pupils was dismissed, a timekeeper and referee were agreed upon and the champions, each finally idolized by their supporters, went at it. Hod Champlin, old Uncle John Waterman, old Uncle Phin Joslyn, Nathan Peck and others giving aid and comfort to Sanborn; Deacon A. V. L. Smith, Dave Champlin. John Eaton, Edwin Burr and a score of others standing grim and determined by the heavy Baptist; nor did they lack for an audience. The hall was filled to suffocation morning, afternoon and evening for the larger pan of a week, many coming ten or twelve miles, and still these champions kepi hurlin- text and argument, hour and hour about, the audience excited to a high pitch throughout. Both sides won. and it could have been proven at any time twenty-five years after the discussion took place. I doubl if such a discussion was advertised for a month now whether if would be attended l>, a -con- of people.

Iii the summer of 1859 or 1860 a mass meeting was called to assemble in this old hall to give expression to the deep indignation felt by the eommiinin over the border ruffian outrages in Kansas. Dr. Dustin, D. B. James, General Winters, Chaunre\ Ellwood and pretty much every Sycamore orator vied with each other in denunciation, when the chairman called Dave Champlin, a freshly ordained freewill Baptisl preacher of Cortland. He was a man with a swinging style of gail and oratory, he saw his opportunity to discounl the Sy&ai talenl and embraced ii : he commenced his speech h\ saying in the most solemn and impressive manner: "Mr. chairman. 1 feel that this is a time when every prayiif man oughter pray (then raising his arm above his head and bringing n tlow n w ith all the emphasis possible), and evo.^ swearin' man oughter swear." This was a culmination 1 1 'a i broughl down the house in thunderous style, ami 1 venture to saj was the only thing uttered at the meeting that has gone into history.

old room that was such an important part of Cortland to a receptacle of trumpery. In the summer of 1861 John (lark, an educate! man, born in England, who had been railroad station agent ami afterward bookkeeper for Champlin & Walrod, the father of Mrs. A. I,. Smith, after mak- ing a short speech in favor of unholding the government, stepped to the table and signed his name to the volunteer list, the first man in the township to perform the patriotic act. Anson Smith, Smith Courtwright, Theodore Loiing, Ransom Burleigh and two or three others soon followed, all going into the Thirteenth Regiment.

In the fall of 1862 I was sought out by the politicians of the count)', made a candidate and elected by the people to the office of superintendent of schools, a Douglas democrat being considered very nearly as good as a republican. The managers wanted to make a union ticket, and after a great deal of search to find a school master who was a democrat, Hod Champlin happened to think of me, and I was elected solely because I was a democrat, and I remember of no democrat who lias been eligible to county office since. I received the records and papers from my predecessor, Nathan Greenwood, in a shoe box, which I took home and I think installed under the bed, room being scant inside my house. I will frankly say, if that office had been destroyed by fire at any time while in my possession I don't believe the educational standard would have been lowered more than one inch, while if a conflagration should consume the office now, after being elevated so many times, it would be like taking the educational bowels right out of the county.

But when one ridicules the schools of 1862 in De Kail) county they are making a great mistake. They were full of pupils, full of life and energy, taught by manly men and womanly women, capable and having the disposition to do good work. McGibeny and wife of Paw Paw, Gilbert Hough and Elizabeth Bark of Somonauk, the Dunbar girls of Afton, Hicks brothers of Kingston, Ed Safford, J. T. Becker, Mrs. .J. T. Becker. Ephraim Shurtliff, Susan Harrington, Ed and Charles Waite, [saac Jones. E. L. Mayo, the doctor. John Pratt, the attorney - these were among and a fansample of the teachers who had charge of the schools at that time.

The most unique and picturesque character in the township was my nearest neighbor, Rudolphus Burr. He came from the state of New York along in the forties, was a man of good academic education, a very independent thinker, who associated little with his neighbors, thoroughly honest in wrord and action, and lived mostly on horseback.

Along in the sixties he sent in his hid for carrying the mail from Cortland to Sandwich, three round trips a week ; he got the contract easily, as his bid was very low, and when he got rigged up for his enterprise the turnout was worth seeing. He had a brace of little yew-necked bay horses, an old democrat spring wagon with a home made cover, an overcoat made out of the hide of a brindle steer that had not been tanned, which made a fine contrast to his long white beard; but the mail had to go through storm and blizzard, and if, during the four years of his contract, it failed, it was after a heroic attempt to get through. He used to go to Cortland the night before the trip and get the mail bag, and leave Ins horses harnessed for an early start the next morning. One morning I heard him calling long before my time of getting up. and on asking him what the matter was he said his horse was in the well. I hurried to his barn and found one of his horses with the harness on in the bottom of the seventeen foot well. The old man could not wait to see the horse out of the well, but harnessed another horse and took the mail, leaving the neighbors to get the horse out. if they could. That was the kind of service the good people of Piercevile. Squaw Grove and Freeland Corners got from government, contractors then. The old man used to take his dinner with him and always took a bottle of smartweed tea to wash down the lunch, ami he thoroughly believed the smartwood tea preserved him. Honest, old man! Just think of a government contractor drinking smartwood tea as a beverage ! One grandson, Wilbur P. Raymond, inherited his genius for the mail service, and is a very proficient mail clerk on the Chicago & Northwestern Railway. Pie is now handling letters on the road between Caledonia and Spring Valley.

What of the main business of the people - farming - from 1854 to 1809? From 1854 to toward 1870 the system was raising grain and selling it at the railroad station ; prices fell in 1856, a money panic in 1857 made them go still lower: still, on the "hole, lots of money came into the hands of the farmers. What became of it? It is safe to say that not five per cent of it is in sight today, for after paying what Mr. Altgeld calls the fixed charges it was mostly spent in pine boards to make the buildings, which were then considered comfortable, but have since been discarded or turned to inferior uses, in board fences long since broken up ami decayed, in frail and ornamental trees and expensive farm machinery, which was not taken care of. Looking back from this date the whole svstem of farming and homemaking seems to have been one great waste. Cattle and horseraising, swine growing and dairying, have all had a g 1 share of attention since 1870, till the business of the township bas been for the past fifteen years, and new is, principally dairying and hog raising, the milk largely being made into butter at'Delana's factories, the balance being shipped to ( Ihicago.

small children bave grown into teachers, preachers, members of congress, railroad managers, prominent business men and g I citizens, filling places in Cortland, wenl to Chicago as an errand boy in the office of a fast freight line, and was general manager id' the Wisconsin Central Railway when he died ten years ago. Everybody knows the career id' A. .1. Hopkins. He was polished off a very little at a kind of bran bread institution over in Michigan, which may accounl for his vagaries, but hi- sterling qualities were absorbed from the soil of Cortland. Will McAlpin, quite a fellow in his line, a natural mathematician, was born, nourished and matured here. Professor A. X. Talbot of the Slab' University is a sprout of the soil. Carlin Joslyn of Deer Lodge, Montana, a very successful business man. and bis brother, a lawyer of Minneapolis ; Clarence Burdick, long and. popular passenger conductor on the Alton railroad; Dr. Postle, of Hincklej ; Professor Lewis and Lawyer Rogers, of Sycamore; Lawyer Julius Matteson, of De Kail i. were all born and schooled in Cortland, besides the -cure- of boys in the commoner walks of life, who are a credit to their town.

A few more facts of interesl concerning Cortland's history before we close. The fr-t log schoolhouse in the township «a> in the Ohio Grove, with Harrv Joslyn as teacher, be receiving about twelve dollars per month and boarding around the district. Mr. Joslyn is now living in Sycamore.

dollars and twenty-two cents that year. In 1847 Homer Roberts became postmaster, receiving seven dollars ami eleven cents. In 1849 he received fourteen dollars and fifty-nine cents, and in 1851 seventeen dollars and nine cents. In this same year another postoffice was established, called Lost Grove postoffice, on Luce"s corner-, with Chauncey Luce as postmaster, receiving twenty dollars and seventeen cents. This postoffice was continued until 1855, when Cortland station had its first postotlice. paying thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents.

Tin' village settlement was not begun until 1853, wln-n tin: Chicago A Northwestern Railroad was built through tins part of the county. It was then called the Dixon Air Line. Prior to the opening of this road the name of the township was Richland, then Pampas, and in the year 1868 tin' legislature changed the name of the township from Pampas to correspond with that of the town, namely, to Cortland.

.Air. Marcenus Hall erected the first house, using it as a boarding house. It still remains, being now the Haley and Murphy houses. Mr. Horace ( liamplin built a warehouse, standing when' our feed mill now stands. Business was exceedingly good now that the railroad was built, and there were sixteen grain buyers at one time in Cortland. Farmers from Belvidere and Shabbona Grove hauled their grain here, thinking this a great advantage, for before this their market place i .i- ( ln< ago. An amusing incident is told by one old farmer, who, coming into Cortland with a load of grain, found that at least forty loads were in line, waiting their turn to unload. He saw one farmer, in haste to unload, pull out from the middle of the line and drive directly to the warehouse. This was all done quietly, and two of the men jumped from the front wagons, and just as quietly turned his horses around, and soon he was at the foot of the line.

It was in one room in this warehouse that the firsl school in the village was kept, with Helen I rossett and Fanny Thrasher a- teachers. Soon a log schoolhouse was built near the south corporation line. Soon after this a frame one was built on the north side of town, where Mrs. John YVnodley's house now stand-. That same building is now Mr. T. W. Jordan's general merchandise store. Church services were held in the old log schoolhouse until June. 1864, when our present Methodist church was completed. Our graded school building was built in the year 1868. The log schoolhouse does service now as a barn on what was known as Mr. De Witt Joslyn*s farm.

A hotel was built by Mr. Ludwigson and managed by the Raymond brothers. A brewery was built, as were also several general merchandise stores, Horace Champlin and James Waterman being the pioneers in this trade in 1854.

When the Sycamore and Cortland road was completed all travel from the northern portions of the county went to the county seat. This was built in 1861. At first it was only a car drawn by horses, but it is now a line four-mile railroad in good condition. Soon after this a large flouring mill was built by Lovell. Smith & Croof, the town giving a bonus of two thousand dollars. The first justice of the peace was Mr. Amos Brown, now a resident of De Kalb. The first person buried in the Cortland cemetery was Mrs. Cynthia Bates, mother of Mr. William J. Bates, who was one of the early settlers of Cortland, residing here over fifty years. Mrs. Gershom Holdridge and Mrs. Wayne Holdridge have lived in Cortland over fifty years. At that time not a house was in the township of Pierce.

The record of Cortland in the war for the union is honorable in the extreme, one hundred and thirty-four having enlisted from the township, and sixteen of that number laid down their lives for their country: Ruthven Russell, Alonzo Russell, Eoliert Close, W. Stark, Charles Plapper, Spafford Deford. John Young, Charles F. Bannister, Charles V. Peek, Oliver Wilson, Emor] Marshall, George H. Gould, T. D. Packard, W. H. Rose and Morris E. Wilson. The township raised twelve thousand, one hundred and three dollars for war purposes.

The early days of the town were the most prosperous, for its proximity to Sycamore and De Kalb. the county seat and factory center, impeded its progress, and Cortland today is much the same as it was twenty years ago. The trades are represented by one butcher shop, one creamery receiving seven thousand pounds of milk a day, two blacksmith shops, one shoe shop, one barber shop, a feed mill, two general merchandise stores, coal and lumberyards and three restaurants. Two churches, one Methodist and one of the Latter Day Saints, grace the town. It has a fine public school building of three rooms and for several years W. W. Coultas has been the efficient principal. The village has encouraging prospects of being a station on the proposed Geneva Lake, Sycamore & Southern Electric railway. It has a population of four hundred inhabitants.

Cortland's early days were her best days, but no better people lived then than now, and the little town of four hundred inhabitants contains many congenial people, whose quiet and uneventful way of living brings more enjoyment than is the lot of those in more hustling places.

A small stable covered with slough grass, with the tilled fields in all shapes, following the dry ground, looking as though the fanner was trying to draw a map with his plow - this prospect has been transformed into square corn fields flanked with square fields of clover and grass and adorned with substantial houses and bams, the houses literally filled with newspapers and other literature. Instead of discussing universal salvation and everlasting damnation, it's "what shall be done with the Philippine islands?"' The change in Cortland township is truly wonderful.

The village of Cortland was incorporated in 1866. The president of the board of trustees, by virtue of his office, is also a member of the board of supervisors. Those who have served are the following : T. T. Peck, John King. B. McGough. Jabez Gwinup, John King, Nathan Peek, John T. Woodley, George W. Savery. John T. Woodley. John King, William Bates and Thomas Jordan. This township was first called Richmond. It was changed to Pampas by J. E. Crossett, an early county school commissioner, from the resemblance of its prairies to the pampas of South America.