Union Grove Township

Union Grove Township

NION GROVE Township, under the original division of the county, formed a part of Union Grove Precinct. This precinct was known abroad before much of the territory that now forms Whiteside County was settled. Pursuant to a public notice, the citizens of this township met on the 6th day of April, 1852, at the residence of John A. Robertson, in the village of Unionville, to organize under the new township laws. Stephen Jeffers was appointed Moderator, and J. N. Vennum, Clerk. After the polls were opened the citizens proceeded to cast their votes, the result of which was the election of W. C. Snyder for Supervisor; A. P. Young, Clerk ; Benj. Burns, Assessor; Collector, Allen Graves ; Overseer of the Poor, Jacob Baker; Commissioners of the Highway, John A. Robertson, "Edwin Vennuni and Stephen Jeffers; Constables, A. A. Richmond and J. N. Vennum ; Justices of the Peace, D. B. Young and Reed Wilber.

The first settler in the territory now embraced by Union Grove Township was Joshua T. Atkinson, who was born in Massachusetts in 1810. He first came to Whiteside County in the fall of 1834, settling in Prophetstown, and occupying a cabin with J. W. Stakes. The following spring he and Stakes made claims in what was then Union Grove Precinct, on both sides of Rock Creek, and commenced their improvements. These claims were made in what is now Union Grove and Mount Pleasant Townships, and were situated in the northern portions. They afterwards divided their interests, Atkinson taking the west side and Stakes the east. He had put up a cabin, which was the first built in the township. It was located where Unionville now is, sections i and 12. Along in the spring (1836) Daniel B. Young came in. He was born Sept. 16, 1800, in New Jersey. He went from there to Ohio, and from Ohio he came to Union Grove. He remained for a while, looking around, and finally purchased Mr. Atkinson's claim on section i, which consisted of 640 acres of land with improvements. After making some further preparations, he returned to Ohio for his family. In the fall he came back, bringing his family, and settled down on his purchase. The following

Mr. Young married Betsey Jackson in 1824. They came to Union Grove with seven children. Five children were born to them in Union Grove. All are living except two, Tryphena and Abigail. Mrs. Young died Jan. 13, 1872. Mr. Young sold his farm to H. M. Teller, and is now living in Morrison. John Richards and family came in 1836, locating on section 34. He came around the lakes. The vessel in which they took passage was wrecked and they lost all their money and most of their goods, and came very nearly being drowned. Mr. Richards died several years ago, but his wife is still living.

Benj. Burns and John A. Robertson came in 1837 and commenced the erection of a saw-mill on the ground now occupied by William Annan's flouring mill. This mill was of great assistance to the early settlers in furnishing them with lumber to build their houses, and for other purposes. Henry Ustick, Elisha Hubbart, John A. King, John Kent and M. L. Atkinson came in and made claims in 1838. Henry Boyer settled on the Mt. Pleasant site in 1836, where he lived until 1840, when he moved to Union Grove. The start having been made, the settlement increased quite rapidly.

The first school taught in the township was by Miss Mary Jeffers, in the summer of 1838, in a log cabin owned by Henry Boyer. Miss Jeffers was afterwards married to John Kent, which was the first wedding in the township. The first death was that of James Heaton, son of William Heaton, who lived in Mt. Pleasant Township. He died in 1840, and was buried in the woods in the Heaton neighborhood. The body was afterwards removed to the Heaton burying-ground.

Mrs. Phoebe Vennum, one of the early settlers here, is still living, residing with her son Edward, who is now quite an old man. She was 101 years old on the 23d of June last. She is in reasonably good health, bright and active, and gives promise of remaining with her friends many years longer. Mrs. Vennum remembers very well when George Washington was President of the United States, and the political events following in the eighteenth century. The War of 1812 is a new event to her. She has witnessed during her life a nation's birth and growth, a growth which places it ahead of all the nations of the earth; and one for grandeur and great achievfa)

The good people of Union Grove were early supplied with religious services, from mission preachers and others, but its religious history is so intimately connected with that ofMt. Pleasant Township, it has been thought best to include it with the latter.

About three-fourths of the land in this township is good ; the balance is composed of swamps and bluffs. This is the portion taken in by the Cat-tail. The latter runs from the Mississippi to Rock River. About midway between these streams the ground is high and the water runs each way to the two rivers. The center or high point is in Union Grove Township. Some of this land has been reclaimed, which makes excellent meadows. In this Cat-tail, or slough, lie large deposits of peat, which is said to be of a good quality. Geologists claim that over this part of the country at one time rested a body of water. The people along the borders of this bed, or slough, have used this peat for fuel, and say that it burns well. Several efforts have been made to convert these deposits of peat into marketable shape, but so far they have not been attended with success. Some portions of the township is undulating, and in others there are broad prairie fields. The soil, generally, is clay loam, and very productive. It is watered by Rock Creek and its tributaries, the Cat-tail and several brooks. Along these streams there is a liberal growth of timber.

The township is well improved, having good roads, many beautiful farms, and fine dwellings. Some attention is being paid to fine stock. Elias Williams & Son, who live on section 8, are breeding Shorthorn Durhams. James Willson, on section 16, has an imported Holstein, and is breeding grades. On section 21 T. R. King has a good creamery, where he makes during the season about 1,000 pounds of butter daily.

(Jnionville, now a pretty little hamlet for dwellings, located on section 12, was once quite a business town, - so much so, that it was platted, in 1841. There were here mills, shops, stores, churches, a postoffice, etc., and the citizens looked forward to the time when their town would assume the propor- tions of a city ; but on an unlucky day a railroad line came through and made its station across the creek in Mt. Pleasant Township. A town sprang up, known since to the world as Morrison, and Unionville was doomed. Many of the people moved over, and all the business houses were transferred, and the churches soon followed.

Unionville Mills is owned by William Annan, Jr. It has four run of stone, with two sets of rollers, and a capacity of 75 barrels of flour per day of 24 hours. It is water wheel, with three turbine wheels, and located on tha bank of Rock Creek. The building is a good, solid stone structure, and is one of the old landmarks of Unionville. It was built in 1860, by William Annan, Sr.,and John A. Robertson. There was formerly a saw-miH on this site.

Unionville has a fine school, which is taught by S. A. Maxwell. The town hall and the school building is combined, and was- erected at a cost of $2,000. It is one lot west of the old school-house site.

Union Grove was the home of the late Hon. Robert E. Logan, Member of the Legislature, who died at his post in the Capitol at Springfield, Feb. 26, 1885. He had a farm on section 15, which he had cultivated for many years. He was for several years Supervisor of Union Grove Township, and a prominent and honored citizen. (See page 358.)

Source changes here: from History of Whiteside County, Illinois from Its Earliest Settlement to 1908 : Illustrated, with Biographical Sketches of Some Prominent Citizens of the County, by Davis, William W, published 1908; 1,590 words in this source stream.

Union Grove Township

The original settler of what is now the town of Union Grove was Joshua T. Atkinson, who came to this county in 1834, and made extensive claims in Union Grove during the summer of 1835. He built a cabin into which his family moved in July, 1836. Previous to- his removal to Geneseo, Henry county in 1875, he lived for many years on his farm in Union Grove. He was an energetic pioneer, and with the assistance of Andrus Hubbard and C. G. Woodruff of Lyndon, made the first breaking plow ever constructed in the county. He also has the credit of introducing the first reaper into the county. He held the office of justice of the peace, being first elected in 1836. None of the descendants of Mr. Atkinson are now living in the county. Among other early settlers may be named Henry Ustick, who later removed to Ustick township, Ira Burch, D. B. Young, Elisha Hubbart, Stephen Jeffers, John A. Robertson. All of these have children or grandchildren still residing in the county. Jacob Baker was one of the prominent pioneers. He purchased a claim in 1842. He came from Fulton where he had resided three years, and where in 1840 he organized the first Sunday school in the county. A strong temperance advocate, a radical abolitionist of the Lovejoy type, maintaining a station on the underground railroad for years. Because of his radical views on slavery, he withdrew from the M. E. church, and in January, 1845, at the Unionville schoolhouse, with D. B. Young, Henry Boyer, and others, organized a society more in harmony with their sentiments. As a sequel to this, a church building was erected in Unionville, and services held regularly until 1870, when the building was removed. Since that time no services have been held in the town except Sunday schools and occasional preaching in schoolhouses. After Morrison sprang up, several churches were removed to that place from Unionville, where they were organized and flourished for a time. Mrs. W. B. Bull, of Union Grove, is a granddaughter of Jacob Baker, and her children and grandchildren represent the fourth and fifth generation of their noted pioneer.

The first school in the town was taught by Miss Mary Jeffers in 1840, in a room in Henry Boyer's log cabin. In the same year A. J. Maxwell was engaged to build a frame schoolhouse on a corner of the farm of D. B. Young, the same now owned by Hon. H. M. Teller, of Colorado, on the Mt. Carroll road. When the building was enclosed, a meeting was called, and it was decided to change the site, and it was moved across the prairie to the place where Mrs. Graves now lives, near the Unionville schoolhouse. About 1882 C. T. Heathcote purchased this building, and removed it to Morrison for a dwelling. It now forms the west part of the residence of Mrs. 0. P. Gray. There are now eight schools in Union Grove, with progressive teachers. Among the pedagogues who have taught in the town during the last forty years are Columbus Vennum, W. F. Eastman, S. D. Gossert, F. Ogsbury, Miss Kate Martin, S. A. Maxwell, W. S. Ellison, J. V. Washburne, Frank Willsey, Miss Bertha Lati-mer, and Arthur Klontz.

Unionville has the distinction of having the only official branch office of the U. S. Weather Bureau in the county. Complete records are kept showing meteorological conditions for every day for the past several years. Mr. S. A. Maxwell, the observer, has during the past five years furnished data to attorneys, bearing on cases in Whiteside and Carroll courts, and Clinton, Iowa.

Among the early settlers still in the town after 45 years may be mentioned Ira S. Burch, Mr. and Mrs. Milo Johnson, William Annan, Miss Kate Annan, and John Phinney. The latter is a well known teacher, having served in various parts of Whiteside, and doubtless has the record for more years of educational usefulness than any other in the profession. He is in fairly good health for an octagenarian, and lives on his farm with his daughter and husband, two miles west of Morrison. He was born in Vermont in 1824.

In the west part of Union Grove are the Cat-tail Bottoms, a by-word from the earliest days for rough travel and impossible cultivation. It has been discovered that they are highly valuable, and Oscar A. Oliver, formerly in business in Sterling and Chicago, now residing on the west side of the bottoms, south of Morrison, on the Garden Plain road, has started extensive celery beds, which thrive like a green bay tree. Other growers are Ira Burch and Peter Clapp. The latter has purchased the interest of George DeHaan. The quality of the vegetable is excellent, and large shipments are made to the cities.

West of Unionville is a neatly kept cemetery. On the tombs you may read such names: Wenger, Richmond, Pollard, Summers. The oldest person is Joseph Johnson, who died in 1864, aged ninety, a soldier of 1812. The children of Rev. H. Hawkins, 1861: Jane Root, 1851. Here is a spruce planted by a girl over the grave of her lover. Henry Ustick, aged 66, who died in 1855. Elijah Town, 1843. Peter Root, 1862, Co. B, 75th Illinois Volunteers. These rural grave yards, what places for meditation and memory! Here sleep these faded forms far from the madding crowd, the struggles of the busy world.

The woman of Whiteside county to attain the greatest age was Mrs. Phebe Vennum, whose last years were spent in the home of her son, Edward Vennum, Union Grove, She was born at Rockaway, Morris county, New Jersey, June 23, 1784, the daughter of Benjamin and Abigail Jackson. The father was a veteran of the Revolutionary war, holding the rank of major, On Feb. 25, 1802, Phebe became the wife of Isaac Lewis of Sussex county, by whom she had two sons, James L., born Jan. 25, 1803, and Benjamin J., born July 4, 1805. Mr. Lewis died in 1814, and Mrs. Lewis with her two children removed with her parents to Knox county, Ohio, where, three years later, she married John Vennum, of Washington, Pa. They had three sons, Edward, Columbus, and John N., and one daughter, Betsy, who died in infancy. Mrs. V. came to Illinois with her husband and family in 1846, and settled in Union Grove on section 3, where Mr. V. died Feb. 12, 1858. After his death, she made her home for 31 years with her son, Edward, a prosperous farmer. Her health was remarkable. To her one hundredth year, she had taken little medicine, and was never seriously sick. Her senses to her last illness were acute, and conversation with her was always a pleasure. The writer visited her at the age of 102, and presented her a cane on behalf of W. 0. Dudley and A. J. Maxwell of Lyndon. At this time, her sight, hearing, and power to converse, were excellent. One June 23, 1884, her one hundredth anniversary, nearly 200 relatives, friends, and neighbors, young and old, assembled at the Vennum home to pay their respects to the venerable pioneer. Among those present was Benjamin Lewis, of Flint, Mich., the eighty-year old son of Mrs. Vennum. At the old settlers' meeting on Morrison fair ground, Sept., 1884, Mrs. Vennum was present, being then one hundred.

Mrs. Vennum was nearly five when Washington was inaugurated, fifteen at his death in 1799, twenty-five when Lincoln was born, thirty-four when Illinois became a state in 1818, fifty when the first settlers came to Whiteside, seventy-seven at the outbreak of the Civjl war, and 105 lacking four days at her death, June 19, 1889. Peter Ford, who died at Deer Grove, 1907, at the age of 105, and Mrs. Vennum, are the only two centenarians of the county.

The Old Mill At Unionville

Perhaps there is no other landmark in Whiteside county familiar to more people than the stone grist mill on Rock creek. Just fifty years ago, in the summer of 1858, its erection was began by John A. Robertson and Wm. Annan, but it was not completed till Dec., 1859. It has always been in operation, and grists of wheat, buckwheat, and corn, are still turned out

In 1867, Annan became sole owner by the purchase of Robertson's interest. Annan died about twenty years ago, and his son, Wm. Annan, who had been employed in the mills since 1868, has conducted the business since.

The first mill on this site was a saw mill built in 1839 by John A. Robertson and Benjamin Burns. The latter traded his interest in 1842 for the whole of section 2 in Union Grove, and this section of the mill interest changed owners two or three times. In 1855 Porteus Robertson owned it, and sold out to Wm. Annan. For several years, the mill ran irregularly, as saw logs became scarce, and as excellent pine lumber could be obtained cheap at Fulton and Albany. When it became a poor investment, the proprietors wisely concluded to take it down, and erect the present grist mill.

Rock creek furnishes the power for the mill. Previous to 1862, a brush dam was used, but since, a frame dam has 'done excellent service with occasional repairs. The mill and dam are only sixty feet from the public road from Morrison to Unionville, which here crosses the creek on a splendid steel bridge. It was erected in 1892 in place of the previous structure of frame.