HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY. KANE COUNTY Occupies a territory of 540 square miles, extending from McHenry on the north to Kendall on the south, and bounded on the east by Cook and DuPage Counties and on the west by DeKalb. It originally comprised thirty-six townships, eighteen of which are now embraced in DeKalb and three in Kendall, while one of the others has been divided since the township organization, leaving sixteen within its present area. It contains nineteen cities, villages and hamlets, many of the most extensive manufactories in the State, about 105 miles of railroad in successful operation, and has few equals among the counties of the entire country in the variety and extent of its resources. Its chief source of wealth, however, is its rich prairie soil, drained by the beautiful Fox River, which traverses its eastern range of townships from north to south, and by several smaller streams and tributaries, the most important of which are Big Rock, Blackberry, Mill, Ferson's, Tyler's and Kishwaukee Creeks, Something less than one-fourth of its area is covered with woodland; and its timber, when the country was new, was of a superior quality, including black walnut, hickory and the many varieties of oak, which are still common in its groves. Its geological deposits which appear to the view are limestone. All exposures of rock are, with one slight exception, along the banks of the river. At any point along the valley, a removal of a few feet of soil discloses this rock, which, at Batavia and vicinity, appears as an excellent building stone. Flag-stone, of any required surface or thickness, may there be obtained, which is usually of a buff or reddish yellow hue. An artesian well, bored at the C., B. & Q. car shops, in Aurora, disclosed, first, 30 feet of alluvial deposit, followed successively by 108 feet belonging to the Niagara limestone group, 165 feet to the Cincinnati group, 232 feet to the Galena and Trenton deposits, and, finally, by 158 feet of the buff and reddish-yellow sandstone. But few fossils have ever been unearthed in the county, and of these few the remains of a mastodon, found near Aurora and now preserved in Jennings Seminary, are the most important. Further notice of them will be made in the chapter upon Aurora Township. Peat is extensively ranged over portions of the surface of the northern townships, especially in Rutland and Hampshire, and in many sections a A fine quality of brick-clay is obtained, from which brick very similar to the celebrated Milwaukee brick is manufactured. Water is found in nearly every part of the county by sinking wells from ten to fifteen feet below the surface. As will be inferred from the above statement, the general nature of the surface is level or but slightly rolling, there being but few hills worthy of the name in the entire county. In summer, the traveler, standing upon the slight elevations along the river bank, may behold for miles the rolling table lands stretching far away toward the rising or setting sun, like cultivated gardens, broken only by the occasional groves, the frequent farm houses, with their clustering barns, the tall poplars around them or the well-built fences and green hedges. Having thus briefly noticed the boundaries, the topography and the geological features of the country, we hasten to detail, at greater length, its SETTLEMENT. There is probably no county in Illinois that has accumulated its population from such various sources as has Kane County. From first to last there have been no less than ten distinct and separate nationalities which have furnished, not individuals only, but colonies, who have made their settlements in the borders of the staunch old county; representatives of whom, in greater or less number, are among the residents to-day. Beginning with the Hoosiers, who came into the county as early as 1833, following closely upon the rear guard of Scott's army upon the settlement of the Sauk, or, as it is commonly known, the Blackhawk war, we find settlements successively of Yankees, from Massachusetts and New York; Scotch, Irish, Pennsylvania Dutch, Welsh, French, Scandinavians, Germans, and, lastly, the war gave us, as one of its legacies, Sambo. Gen. Scott pushed the Indians back with his little army, which cut its way through the Little Woods, fording the river at the big bend near what is now known as Silver Glen, and left its trail broad and deep across the prairie through the townships of Elgin, Plato and Burlington. Not only did the artillery and supply trains leave a broad track in their wake, but Death also traveled with the column, and, under the dread name of cholera, took captive many prisoners who have never yet been mustered for exchange, but whose bones have mouldered away on 1ounded slopes in Plato, where the mounds may be seen and noted to-day. As Scott solved the Indian question in Illinois, people from Virginia, Kentucky, Southern Indiana and Illinois, all called by the general name of "Hoosiers," came into the county, in big canvas-covered wagons drawn by four or five yoke of oxen, and called "prairie schooners." They located on the southern side of groves and in sunny exposures beside streams and springs, and fenced only as much land as would suffice for a little corn, and gave themselves up generally to the pleasures of the chase, game being abundant. They were hardy people, fond of pioneer life, regardless of the forms and ceremonial restraints of advanced civilization, but noted for their neighborly kindness and hospitality. They lived a careless, easy life, and on the irruption of the Yankees, as a general thing, went again to the border, at that time in Iowa. They were generally inclined to Methodism in their religious views, and took naturally to it when Bishop Asbury's itinerating preachers came to the front. The Alexanders came to Geneva from Southern Illinois, about 1835, and John Tucker, a fine courtly gentlemen from Virginia, came about 1836–7, and with his sons, Charles and John R., and several daughters, settled in Campton, on what is still held as the Tucker homestead. Some of the daughters married into the Corron families, thus connecting two of the oldest families in the county. Richard J. Hamilton, Col. Strode and Buckner J. Morris, largely interested at that time in Kane County, also came from Kentucky, but located in Chicago. Bird built a log house on his claim near the ravine, just north of A. M. Herrington's farm house, in Geneva. Haight built his house near the large spring just opposite the old Webster House that was in Geneva. Crow built on the east side of the river. Newton Shelby took up the site of East St. Charles, and sold all of the claim north of the main street to Calvin Ward, in 1835, for $75. J. M. Laughlin made his claim at Round Grove, east of St. Charles, and subsequently purchased it of the Government. He married into the family of Gartons, who lived near him. John Hammers took up the old Western Enterprise Claim, just east of St. Charles Village, and subsequently sold out and moved to Hoosier Grove, northeast of Elgin, where, with Abe Leatherman, he soon gathered about them a fine sturdy lot of brother Hoosiers, many of whom are still living in the western part of Cook County, and make Elgin their market. Wm. Franklin located the claim now known as the Gray farm, near Laughlin's, and the Stewarts located on the Dutton farm. At Dundee, around its sheltering mounds so picturesque and beautiful, and beside its clear, unfailing springs, Rice and Dewees squatted and built the Spring Mills, supplied with power by the springs which flow from the mounds. which subsequently have proven to be valuable sources of wealth in material for the justly celebrated white brick of Dundee. They also built the usual accompaniment, in those days, of a grist-mill, a distillery to provide a market for the corn raised in the county, on the principal that as corn in the raw was unpalatable, yet if it was worked up into whisky, a little of it could be worried down. Wm. Welch also came, an old veteran, whose history reaches back into the bloody days of Boone, in Kentucky, and who was one of Boone's companions in many a weary hunt and dangerous campaign. In 1812, Mr. Welch took a supply train from Blue Lick, Ky., through the unbroken wilderness in Ohio, Pennyslvania and New York, to the army at Sackett's Harbor on Lake Ontario. It was a thrilling story to hear "Uncle Billy" relate this episode in his life. Benj. Marks, a relative of the Welches, entered large tracts of land in the townships of Elgin and St. Charles at the land sale, the patents for which from the |