BlockOsage Township
The complete chapter on this township from History of LaSalle County, Illinois : Its Topography, Geology, Botany, Natural History, History of the Mound Builders, Indian Tribes, French Explorations, and a Sketch of the Pioneer Settlers of Each Town to 1840, with an Appendix, Giving the Present Status of the County, Its Population, Resources, Manufactures and Institutions, published 1877. 392 words, covering 2 settlements. Source changes inside the text are labelled at the exact paragraph where the next book begins.
Contents
1 sectionThe section headings the book prints inside this chapter. Each one jumps to where it begins.
The modern record here
2 settlementsWhat the federal record holds for each settlement inside this township: wildfires and storm reports since the 1950s, mineral workings, and museum specimens collected nearby. These are counted within a few miles of each settlement, so neighbours share them and the columns are deliberately not added up. Every row links to the settlement's own page, where each figure is broken out.
Settlements in this township
2 placesEvery populated place the Geographic Names Information System records inside this township's Census boundary. None of the 2 is named in the chapter: they were founded later or were never more than a post office.
The chapter
392 wordsReproduced complete and unedited from History of LaSalle County, Illinois : Its Topography, Geology, Botany, Natural History, History of the Mound Builders, Indian Tribes, French Explorations, and a Sketch of the Pioneer Settlers of Each Town to 1840, with an Appendix, Giving the Present Status of the County, Its Population, Resources, Manufactures and Institutions, published 1877. The text is machine-read from scans, so expect recognition errors: misspelled names, dropped words, and stray characters. Nothing has been corrected, because correcting a proper name invents one. The headings below are the books' own; source changes are labelled in place.
Osage Township
The town of Osage includes the Congressional 'Township 30 North, of Range 2 Bast, the south line of Groveland or Township 29 being at first the south line of La Salle County, along all its southern border,
Osage ie a prairie region exclusively, Snrronnded by prairie and distant from the county seat, it was unoccupied until after the older portions of the county had become comparatively an old country, and yet the early settlers have a lively recollection of the loneliness and privations of a new region. The first entry of Government land was in November, 1820. The N. W. + Sec. 17 was entered by Johu O. Dent; at the same time he entered for R. B. Dent, now of California, the N. W. + of same Section,
In 1850, Daniel Grimes entered the N. W. } of Sec. 6, and John and Amos Scott entered the N. +of Sec. 4. The pioneer practice of making claims on Government land had about become obsolete, and a legal title was considered the only valuable one.
The town was named from the Osage hedge plant. William H. Mann grew ninety acres of plants, and Dent & Verner grew forty acres of plants the year the town was organized.
Supervisor ; James B. Work, T. Clark, G. M. Goodale, A. Ledore and John York, Commissioners; John Elliot and John N. York, Justices of the Peace; RB. E. Dent, Collector; Pleasant York, Assessor. 'The town is well fenced with Osage hedge, and nmumerous thrifty groves of timber exist. It is doubtless true that a prairie region will, in the fature, be better supplied with timber than one witha heavy primitive growth, and « town entirely destitute will feel the necessity and make more provision | for the fature supply than one partially or fully supplied.
Such seems to be the case in La Salle County. John O. Dent has taken the lead in this direction, having forty acres of timber planted on his premises, and groves of maple, black walnut, ash, etc., are eonspienons objects on most of the farms in the | town. In this respect it is said to be in advance of | any other town in the county, and the bleak and | nuked face of the native prairie is thus transformed | into a beautiful variegated landscape, now a thing
Provenance
Text from History of LaSalle County, Illinois : Its Topography, Geology, Botany, Natural History, History of the Mound Builders, Indian Tribes, French Explorations, and a Sketch of the Pioneer Settlers of Each Town to 1840, with an Appendix, Giving the Present Status of the County, Its Population, Resources, Manufactures and Institutions, published 1877, in the public domain in the United States and digitised by the Internet Archive. The settlements listed against this township are matched by point-in-polygon test of each Geographic Names Information System coordinate against the Census Bureau's county subdivision boundary, not by name.