Groveland Township

Groveland Township

Township 20, Range 2, constitutes the town of Groveland. It is the southernmost town in the county, and the last settled. With the town of Osage, it lies between the counties of Marshall and Livingston, and when those counties were onganized from territory taken partly from La Salle, both of them refused to take the territory included in those towns. So La Salle from necessity had to keep it. With the present population and wealth they constitute no insignificant portion of the county, The west side of the town is the most elevated. Prairie creek rises near New Rutland and runs to and along the north line. Long Point creek rises néar Minonk, and crosses the town from southwest to northeast, while the southeast portion is drained by Diamond creek. All these ran northeastwardly to the Vermillion, and make effectnal drainage. In 1855 the town was an unbroken prairie, without an inhabitant. The first house in the town was moved on to the present site of New Rutland, and made a section-house on the Illinois Central Railroad. Tt was made a liquor saloon, and destroyed by a mob in 1865. The railroad was built through the town before it was settled, und doubtless was the agency that developed its resources. Abner Shinn built the first house and Oscar Jacobson occupied it in March, 1855, being the first resident in the town. He left i The second resident was Elias Prink, and imily Whitman, from Onondaga County, N. Hisonly child, W. E., marin 1s wife, Y.; he settled on §.

ried Orvilla Kenyon, and has seven children. He was a good soldier, and is Police Magistrate in the village of Dana, The third was Lewis W. Martin, from Indiana ; he made an improvement on Sec. 10; sold to Alva Winans and went to Nebraska, Geo. W. Gray located and lives on &. 11 in 1856, and raised a large family, The fifth settler was William Martin; he pre-empted the northeast quarter Section 25th. An Englishman by birth, he enlisted in the 334 Regiment, and died on his way home from the army; 2 bachelor, he left no relatives but a sister, Mrs. Avna Swift of Bloomington. Nelson Cooper, from Maryland, a carpenter by trade, settled on 8. 17. He enlisted in the 104th Regiment. His wife was Sarah M. Jacobson, daughter of John Jacobson. He is the present Supervisor of the town. John Jacobson, from Germany to Ohio, was a magistrate there; was Supervisor here for several years, and moved to Nebraska in 1869.

An emigration association was formed in January, 1855, of about two hundred members, residing in the vicinity of Rutland, Vermont, Each member paid ten dollars, and was to have a lotin an embryo city to be located somewhere in the far West. Dr. Allen and W. B. Burns were the locating committee, The present site of New Rutland was selected, being the northwest 40 acres on 8. 18, and southwest 400n 8.7. The railroad gave the members a preference in the selection of thelr lands at 20 per cent. discount. W. B. Burns came on the ground in Augast, 1855 ; built a house and occupied itin 1856; he was the master spirit of the enterprise and in- snred its snecess; bad health induced him to remove to California, whore he died in 1875. Willard Proctor and Rufus Weston were the first to select lands under the arrangement with the railroad. John Wadleigh came to the town in the fall of 1855;

Regiment, and had the care of the regiment for awhile; now Postmaster at New Rutland. Daniel Wadleigh came about the same time as his brother John.

8. L, Bangs came in 1856; he was agent for Mark Bangs, a younger brother, in building five dwellings, and purchasing about $100,000 worth of railroad lands, and bresking 800 acres of prairie, The speculation failed of success in the revulsion of 1857.

John T. Govecame in 1856; was called the village blacksmith ; was afterwards a merchant. His son, E. Gove, was a suecessful teacher; 2 Lieutenant in the Thirty-third Regiment, and breveted a Major.

John Grove and son, J. M. Grove, came and set tled on the west half of Section 15, in the spring of 1856. John Grove was the oldest man in the town. J. M. taught school from his eighteenth year; studied law, and was admitted to the bar in Ohio. He held the offices of Asseasor and Justice of the Peace and Supervisor.

Marshall Smiley,on Sec. 36; Thomas Reeder and Joseph H. Brown settled near the south line of the town ; A. Mullen and R. Ballinger settled on 8S. 6 - all in the spring of 1830.

The first religious meetings were held in the hotel stable ; and afterwards in the hotel. Esquire Barney O'Neal on the Vermillion, twenty miles away, was the nearest Justice of the Peace: there was no Jaw, yet all was orderly. At the Presidential election in 1856, the political exeitement reached the infant settlement, and all went twenty miles to the honse of Alif Goff, near the Vermilion, to vote - all but one voting for Fremont. Groveland was made a town in the fall of 1856. First election was held in April, 1857; W. B. Burns, Supervisor ; John Wadleigh, Clerk ; andJ.M.Grove, Assessor.

Groveland has two villages and railroad stations within its limits : New Rutland on theIlinois Central Railroad, and Dana on the Chicago, Pekin & Southwestern - both of which roads pass through the town. New Rutland has five churches, a graded school, ten stores, a grain elevator, mill, and 800 population. Dana, in the southeastern part of the town, has two grain elevators, one church, six stores, a mill, and 250 population. Like all settlers in a prairie town,