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Carroll County History by Volney Armour July 7, 1876
Carroll County is bounded on the north by Jo Daviess and Stephenson Counties, on the east by Ogle, on the south by Whiteside, and on the west by the Mississippi river. It is the second county south of the Wisconsin state line, in Northwestern Illinois. In the northwestern portion of the county about one third is hilly and rough. Of this a strip on either side of Carroll Creek of from one-half to three-quarters of a mile wide, extending to the Mississippi river, except a sink for a distance along Plum river, is lead bearing or mineral land. On nearly all the other portions of that part of the county, the lead bearing rocks are covered with massive strata of the Cincinnati and Niagara formations. Along the river are found the usual alluvial bottoms, which are now divided into rich productive farms. The hills are also rich and productive, especially as wheat lands, until the washing rains carry the vegetable mold away on its journey to the Mississippi delta.
The remaining portions of the county, with the exception of the Mississippi bottoms, is gently rolling prairie, with now and then a grove along the margin of some stream, one or two of which spread out to a considerable width. The soil of the prairie is deep and black, and for fertility is equal to any in the state, and also for varied productions; and there are no sloughs to send up their miasmatic lader vapors to poison the air and breed fevers in the blood of the people. Along Carroll Creek, at Mt. Carroll, and below on the banks, portions of the way are mural escarpments, broken here and there by projecting rocks, that are truly grand.
Geologically, we are away down in the Silurian age. The underlying rocks are the Galena and Cincinnati of the lower Silurian, and Niagara of the upper Silurian age. Above these are the Quarternary deposits. The richest and best soil overlies the Galena limestone.
Historically, Carroll County, and the whole State as well, is a part of the Northwest Territory, claimed by Virginia, Connecticut, and perhaps Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania, under their charter, from the Crown of England, and while before the French war it was claimed by both France and England, with the best right no doubt on the part of France. That war gave the undisputed title to England. Previous to that war, the French had established trading posts and erected forts all the way from the upper Ohio to the Mississippi river, and had planted small colonies near them. The whole country, including Canada and the southwest, was called by them New France, and they no doubt dreamed of a future empire that should be greater and outrival France herself. If they did, they should have added this condition: Provided the Anglo-Saxon, the dominant race of the world, permits. Through the Revolutionary War we succeeded to the rights of England.
Illinois was organized as a Territory about the year 1809, and included within its limits Wisconsin and that part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi. Its present boundaries were fixed at its admission into the Union, in 1818. It was divided into two Counties at first by Territorial Governor Pope. St. Claire was the southern county, and Randolph the northern one. It was soon divided into several more, so that when it was admitted into the Union, in 1818, it had fifteen counties. The first Territorial legislature of Illinois consisted of four counselors, and seven representatives. Illinois was first settled by colonists brought into the country by La Salle. He first built a small fort on the Illinois river, which he named Crevecoeur, and then planted his colonies at Kaskaskia and Cahokie. Jo Daviess County was organized in 1827.
In 1770, a French voyager in ascending the Mississippi from St. Louis, discovered lead in the vicinity of the present city of Dubuque. The discovery was announced to the world but attracted little attention, until a much later period. These lead mines were found to embrace a portion of the States of Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa. It was not until the year 1826 or 1827 that lead was mined to a large extent and became a general business. As lead was a cash article, and as very little labor of the people of Illinois, at the time, could be directed in any other channel that would bring the article known as read cash, the people of the central and southern part of the State traveled to and from the mines, alternating between mining and farming; going up after getting in their spring crops, and returning in time for corn husking.
This northward and southward movement occurring at the seasons that the sucker fish goes up the small streams to spawn, the miners called these men suckers. Afterwards, the name was applied to the people of the whole State, and this is why we are called suckers. The roads they traveled were called trails. The main trail from Peoria and the country below crossed Rock river at Dixon’s ferry, where the city of Dixon now stands; thence by Chambers Grove to Cherry Grove, thence on to Galena. Another trail, though much less traveled, branched from the other side of Rock river; crossed that river at Prophetstown, thence it crossed into this county in the town of York, wound its course into the York Valley, and thence up by the Old Shoemaker place. Another, a later and fainter trail, branched from the Dixon trail, passed near where Milledgeville now stands; thence north, and east between the other two routes, and united with them again a few miles north of Mount Carroll.
These suckers, coming as they did from the lower, flatter, wetter country below, headed for the high hills and rough country of Jo Daviess County and the mines, were no doubt delighted and charmed, many of them, by the dry rich undulating prairies, studded as they were by the beautiful groves, more resembling islands than anything else, except real islands, and each as he passed along marked in his memory the spot that pleased him most, and in his imagination built there his future home, and peopled it with his household gods, of wife and prattling children; or perhaps calculating the chances of increase of travel on his route, determined to build a rude hotel that would answer for the rude men of those days and times and gather in a part of those dollars made in the mines which were so hard to get by the sale of any agricultural productions.
The usual routes of the advancement of settlement and civilization in that period, however, was the navigable streams. Thus it was, that the first settlement in the County was made at Savanna. The next settlements were at Cherry Grove and Elkhorn Grove, along the route of the great lead mine trail. However, some few of the early settlers of these latter places were soldiers of the Black Hawk War, who spied out this country, in following up the old Indian trail in pursuit of the savages, just prior to the battle of the Bad Axe, or in returning from that campaign.
Among those soldiers of the Black Hawk War was Francis Garner, father of James and I. G. Garner, of Cherry Grove. Then, too, the fame of the rich lands of the Rock river valley began to spread to all parts of the country, and the immigrants came flocking in from all the States, drawn hither by the glowing accounts of that land said to be flowing with milk and honey; and thousands in the East read and dreamed of this beautiful land; this land of bright skies, of sparkling streams, of gay-hued flowers, of verdant plain and dark, shady groves; and hastened hither, fearing almost that ‘ere they reached its charmed limits its portals would close against them, as the gate of Heaven closed against Moore’s Peri. And as the mythology of all nations has some basis of truth to rest upon, why not the Rock river valley be the garden on the Hesperides of Grecian mythology? But let us drop fancy and come to history.

SAVANNA
In the fall of 1828, George and Vance L. Davidson, Aaron Pierce, and William Blundell, all men of families, came down from the lead mines and settled on the Mississippi River at the present site of Savanna. At that time there was an old Indian council house at that locality, built of poles and bark, two stories high, and capable of holding about one thousand persons. This council house was located upon the Territory of the Winnebagoes, at a convenient point for conference with neighboring tribes. Here had gathered in council, Shabonah, Winnesheik, and Nachusa, chiefs of the Winnebagoes, and their warriors, to confer with the chiefs of the Sacs and Foxes, whose headquarters were near Rock Island, and the northern tribes of Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. On many occasions, decisions were there made by the dusky chiefs, upon which depended the lives of the white men, women, and children, of the new settlements.
At this time the lead mines of Jo Daviess and adjoining counties in Iowa and Wisconsin, had called together, so great a number of settlers and adventurers that the fires of the council house had ceased to burn, and the Indian tribes had ceased to counsel together at that point. Into this old council house, these four men with their families, the first settlers of the future Carroll County, took up their abode until they could rear their humble cabins of logs, cut from the present site of Savanna.
Savanna took its name from the low, flat level grass lands that extended up to where the Irvine Saw Mill used to stand; above that was splendid timber extending from the bluffs to near Main Street. The trees were however all dead, having been girdled by the Indians a year or two prior to the arrival of the settlers. Some of these trees were more than ten feet in circumference. Their near neighbors were the few settlers at Albany, Whiteside County, Dixon, Lee County, and Hanover, Jo Daviess County. They brought each a pair of cattle with them with which they did their logging and breaking; and they planted the first crop ever cast into the bosom of the prolific earth of Carroll County, in the spring of 1829; and while they planted and the Lord watered, yet the earth would have brought no increase, except that the boys and girls had been kept by day scaring the countless millions of birds of every kind and hue from devouring the germinating seed in the spring, and the ripening corn in the fall; and the men and boys had kept in check the hundreds of raccoons that came upon their fields like the plagues of Egypt, in the night.
But perseverance and industry conquered, and the settlers gathered a harvest of golden grain that gave proof of the fatness of the land. M. B. Pierce says that we of today have no idea of the throngs of birds that filled the groves and made vocal the solitudes around, nor of the wild fowl that swam in the sloughs and creeks of that time. I gather from what he says that they swarmed around Savanna then, like the grasshoppers now do around Greeley, Colorado.
In May of this year, 1829, the wife of Captain John B. Rhodes, daughter of Aaron Pierce, was born; the first white child born in Carroll County. The Indians at that time were numerous and friendly and shared with the settlers for a trifling compensation, the products of the chase and fish from the streams. These substantials as well as delicacies, the mere thought of which at this late day makes our stomachs hunger and our mouths water, consisted of venison, wild turkeys, prairie chickens, and ducks, geese, woodcock, and ship in their season, and occasionally, buffalo meat, as countless herds of bison then roamed the prairies of Iowa and Minnesota. Whether these settlers hankered after the flesh pots of Egypt, such as hog meat, I don’t know, but certainly the grunt of the porker was yet unheard in Carroll County; and I know they signed for milk and butter, for of these as yet they had none, until M. B. Pierce and father went down to Bond County, in the summer of 1829, and got back some time in August with a few cows. They also brought a few horses with them.
While these early settlers had so much to gladden their stomachs, the country was not without its pull-backs and draw-backs, for the voracious mosquito sang and hummed about their unsilent couches, and wood ticks, buffalo gnats and horse flies sought their life blood in revenge for being disturbed in their hitherto quiet domain. And my hearers, when you come to contemplate the great happiness of the early settlers of Cherry Grove, Elkhorn Grove, and Preston Prairie, of whom I shall soon speak, do yourselves the pleasure without further reference by me, to associate with those settlers, those same mosquitoes, gnats, and flies.
M. B. Pierce says that Savanna in those days was known as “Council Bluffs,” Supposing that to be the case, the name must have been confined to the narrow limits of the lead mines, as that name at that locality has never happened to get into history or geography.
In the spring of 1830 or 1831, John Bernard settled in what is now Washington township, at the Hartfield place, and two men by the names of Hayes and Robinson settled on the George Fish farm the same spring, and a man by the name of Corbin settled on the now Noah McFarland farm. All these men were then unmarried. Corbin built a hut in a tree then feet from the ground to avoid snake bites, rattle snakes then abounding in all this region. An idea of how numerous were some of the fur bearing animals around the Dyson neighborhood in York may be arrived at by the fact that M. B. Pierce and another man in five weeks killed 1,600 muskrats, which brought them the snug little sum of $200 per man.
The Black Hawk War broke out in 1832. The settlers built a block house near the present residence of Mayor Dupuis, in preparation for a probably attack by the Indians. In the meantime the war cloud became so threatening that the women and children were sent to Galena for greater safety, while the men remained to cultivate their fields. Previous to this time Leonard Goss, who was afterwards a prominent citizen of the county, and one Bob Upton and others had come in and settled at Savanna.
The precise date of the only battle in Carroll County during the Black Hawk War is uncertain, at any rate the men were surprised in the field in the early part of the day, and at once started for the block house, the Indians following them with spirit. Leonard Goss was a little behind the rest and by the time he got to the only door, which was already closed; Goss instead of stopping at the door in range of the guns dodged behind the house, climbing hastily to the roof and dumped down the chimney unscratched, but greatly demoralized. An now commenced the battle in earnest, and like many great battles before and since, none were killed or wounded on either side.
In the night the settlers wisely concluded to retreat up the river. It is said they drew lots to see who should go out from the fort and hunt up any boat that the Indians had left undestroyed. This service fell to the lot of Aaron Pierce. It well might be supposed to be a dangerous service, from the unknown proximity of the red skins, and he manfully acknowledged that fear was his companion in the enterprise. Happily the Indians had forgotten to destroy their boats or they were covered by the guns of the fort, and he brought a couple along side and the party embarked for Galena.
Soon after and when about half a mile from their starting place, they were hailed by some person on shore; they approached the shore and took him aboard, nearly upsetting in the operation. This person proved to be Bob Upton. It seems he had started for a hunt in the morning, had shot a deer up on the Whitten place, and was just in the act of cutting its throat when a bullet from a red skin’s rifle came near to putting an end to his like for venison. He waited not upon the order of his going, but started at once for the fort, loading his gun as he dodged along under cover of the trees. Finding the Indians had already commenced an attack upon the fort, he followed around the ridge down the bluff to the margin of the river and hid himself in a cave there, ever since known as Upton’s Cave. He had intended to crawl down to the fort at night; fortunately he had delayed starting and was rescued as before stated. The moment he heard the sound of oars he divined what was going on. It is said that on his way to his hiding place pursued by the Indians, he got in a shot and that if an Indian was killed that day about those parts, he did it; that the crack of his rifle meant death to whatever it was aimed. The Indians killed a number of horses and cattle left.
Aaron Pierce was Savanna’s first tavern keeper; he even commenced entertaining strangers while living in the old council house, and still continued afterwards. He built the present Chambers House in 1836 or 1837. It was first erected near John B. Rhodes residence, and was moved to its present site some years afterwards. Luther H. Bowen about the same time also built the Woodruff House, at first called the Mississippi House. These hotels were built in a then anticipation of a glorious future for Savanna. The Legislature of Illinois in the winter of 1835-36 inaugurated its great scheme of internal improvements, embracing about 1,300 miles of Railroad. One of these was to strike the Mississippi at Savanna. Had this road been built at that time Savanna would no doubt now would have been one of the most important cities in the State. What Quincy is, may safely regarded as a fair representation of what Savanna might have been. It was with an eye to this supposed future that those hotels were built. They were then the best hotels of this whole region of country. It is indeed even at this late day sad to contemplate what possibilities for Savanna were blasted by the final tornado of 1837.
The late Luther H. Bowen, probably the most enterprising citizen Savanna ever had, came to the State in 1832. He aided in the early surveys of this northwestern country. Though he came to Savanna several years after the Pierce’s, Davidson’s and Blundell’s, he became the original proprietor in connection with some Quakers by the name of Murry of Philadelphia, of the town of Savanna; which he laid out in 1836 or 1837. Bowen was also Savanna’s first merchant. Vance L. Davidson however afterwards laid out an addition to the town.
Settlers came in slowly till 1833 or 1834. Stephen N. Arnold, who gave his name to the landing above Savanna, on the place owned by John Robinson, came about this time. Royal Cooper, afterwards Justice of the Peace and Recorder, came about 1835, as so did Nathan Lord and Elijah Bellows. About 1835, a Mr. Craig built a saw mill on the Plum River near the present grist mill. L. H. Bowen owned it soon after.
In the spring of 1839, at the organization of Carroll County, Savanna precinct cast 127 votes, of which as many of 60 must have resided in Savanna, which indicated a then population of at least 300.
In 1839, Porter Sargent, with the father and uncle of L. W. Bemis as partners, erected the powder mills on Plum River, near the upper bridge. The charcoal for the powder was made of the willows that grow so plentifully on Plum River and the Mississippi bottoms. The willows would not have failed if the manufacture had been continued to this time. In 1845 the mills blew up and killed Hiram Balcom, belonging to the Balcom family of York, and injured several others, among whom was Elnathan Jones of Mount Carroll Township, who narrowly escaped with his life, and is yet crippled from the effects of his injuries. In 1853, one of the buildings then abounded by the powder company was entered by some fishermen with torches to escape a shower; a spark falling to the floor caused an explosion that blew up that and the other buildings standing near, killing a Mr. Hicks and nearly burning one or two others to death. The first explosion was plainly heard at Mount Carroll.
At the organization of the County in 1839, Savanna became the county seat and continued so till it was moved to Mount Carroll in 1844. Savanna at one time had the reputation of being a sickly place. It seems that its people were kindly disposed to the sick, and especially was true of the Pierce family; consequently every young immigrant and every stranger that got sick in the whole region about was carried to Aaron Pierce’s to be nursed. Attentions to the sick were shared in by the community in general, but more especially by M. B. Pierce and Dr. Elias Woodruff, then a young man, and the first physician that came to the county; Pierce and Woodruff often alternated sitting up with the sick, one one night, and the other the next, neither of whom either received pay or thanks very frequently; the patients as soon as possible after convalescence, as a general rule departing without a formal leave taking, to escape expected and just charges. It is indeed trying to one’s humanity not to get even thanks from those on whom we have conferred most important favors. Such however is the oft repeated experience of the humanitarian and philanthropist. Thus while the people received neither thanks nor money from the sick, the place was injured and immigration kept out, from the reputation for sickness thus gained. It is said that Dr. Woodruff, unlike most of the physicians in practice today in out county, never stopped to make preliminary inquiries as to the prospect of collecting his bill before making his visit.
CHERRY GROVE
The first settlement of a locality is always around a grove, if there is one, and along routes of travel if there are any such. Carroll County was not an exception to this rule, for we find that our first settlers, except those at Savanna, came here to found a village, settled as would naturally be supposed, at Elkhorn Grove, Chambers Grove, which is in fact a branch of Elkhorn Grove and Cherry Grove, in the immediate vicinity of the routes of travel as we have before mentioned from Dixon’s Ferry to Galena, but as Chambers Grove is almost entirely in Ogle County we shall say but little of it. At which place the first pioneer reared his hut and blazed his claims is left uncertain to us. After considering all the testimony we could gather, we have concluded to fix upon Cherry Grove, as the grove of the three named, that had the honor to receive the first settler.
His name was Thomas Crane; he could not have come alone, for he built a log or block house in the grove a little east and north of the Garner Moffett House. He undoubtedly knew something of Indian character for he surrounded his house by an abates to protect himself and family from surprise. The house and abates were both pierced with what is called port holes. This abates was large enough to include within it a small garden. This same old house for many years seems to have been where all new comers found temporary shelter; for here it was that George W. Harris and family came in 1837. Here in 1840, David Emmert and family were first sheltered and W. A. J. Pierce’s father’s family in 1841, and I have heard of several others whose names are not remembered.
At no distant period after the Black Hawk War, Crain sold his claim to Samuel M. Hitt of Maryland, who was afterwards a prominent citizen of Ogle County. Crane removed to what was afterwards known as Crane’s Grove, in Stephenson County. Francis Garner came from Southern Illinois with his family of five or six children, soon after the war; his youngest child Mary, and probably Jane also, was born in Carroll County. He made the selection of his claim on his route home from Galena after his discharge from the pursuit of Black Hawk and his Indians. Two of his children and widow reside on the old place; I. G. and Mary, and James near by. Mrs. Garner is the only old settler now living in the grove except some who came there as children.
In 1833 William Thompson settled either at Cherry Grove or Arnolds Grove; if at Cherry Grove, he soon sold out and took up the claim of the old Arnold and Henry Strickler places. Levi Walden or Walker took a claim the same year. George Swaggart came the next year; his wife died soon after. She selected the place for her burial, and hers was the first grave in the Cherry Grove yard; Garner Moffett came in 1833 and purchased a claim, probably George Swaggart’s. Moffett lived in the original log house until 1846 or 1848. William Daniels came in 1837. He must have been a bold man for he took a claim on the creek near Lanark where George Ransovor now resides, two miles from the Grove. No one had as yet ventured so far out on the prairie. In 1837 the late George W. Harris, another Marylander came to the Grove; he came to take charge of Hitt’s interest, or perhaps was employed by Hitt after he got there, for that purpose. He first lived in the old fortified house and my informant says, kept tavern there three years and then built for Hitt the old Cherry Grove house, a frame two story house, commodious and imposing for the time, and kept that two years. Some part of this is a mistake as David Emmert kept it in 1840 or 1841, and a Mr. Pierce immediately after Emmert. John Iler and Peter Myers came out about the time that Harris came.
For sometime previous, and until 1846 a line of coaches passed Cherry Grove from Galena and Dixon. These coaches stopped with Harris while he was at Cherry Grove and continued with him after he moved to Plum River. Emanuel Stover afterwards owned the farm on which stood the Cherry Grove House and he or some person to whom he sold it removed it to Lanark and it is now a part of the Taber House barn.
In 1837 Sarah, daughter of Garner Moffett, and now the wife of Emanuel Stover, was born; she is the oldest living native representative of that vicinity. Harris left the Grove about 1841and took the claim, now the farm of Samuel Ludwick, on Plum River. Here as well as at Cherry Grove, he kept hotel and Postoffice. In 1847 he moved to Mount Carroll; was Postmaster from 1853 to 1861, eight years, and Justice of the Peace for a longer time. He was an energetic, go-ahead, intelligent man; he died in 1875, respected and regretted by our whole community.
James Mark came in 1837 without money or property. In 1841, he was living alone in an 8 x 10 pole shanty on his claim, east of where H. F. Lowman now lives. Nathan Fisk, Israel Jones and Brodstrut Robinson took claims in 1838 or 1839. Fisk located on the north side of the Grove; Jones on the big springs near Shannon. Robinson east of the Grove. Jones ventured further out on the prairie than any settler before him. The father of John Laird was here before this time and had taken or bought a claim. George Swaggart on leaving Cherry Grove bought out William Thompson, who took up the Shultz farm in Woodland. A few years later he sold to Daniel Arnold and Henry Strickler. In 1838 he, S. M. Hitt and Daniel Christian bought the Otis and Mathews claim to Mount Carroll and vicinity and in 1841 or 1842 lived where J. H. Hartman now resides; he afterwards took up the farm two miles south, east of Mount Carroll, where he died in 1856 or 1857.
Adam Daggart settled at Bowman’s Grove; he sold out to George Bowman and took up his residence in Black Oak Grove, where he still resides. His first wife lies buried at the edge of the grove.
I have somewhat failed to mention John C. Owings. He came into the county in 1834, from some one of the southern states; settled a little to the southwest of the grove. He was a sort of leader among the early settlers; was Justice of the Peace for a long time, and Postmaster awhile. He now resides in Iowa, having left the county in 1868.
Garner Moffett, of whom we have before spoken, was a king, genial gentleman, of fair talents and some culture. He was elected to several offices by strong majorities, though a democrat, and the county was decidedly whig; he was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1848. He died in 1856 respected and regretted by every acquaintance.
ELKHORN GROVE
Of all the groves in the county, Elkhorn Grove was the finest and best, whether considered as to extent, the native beauty of its surroundings, the height to which its grand old trees lifted their waving heads, or the variety and value of its timber. Many of its trees were straight as arrows, of immense size and towered to the skies.
About the year 1830, John Ankeny and Thomas Parish built cabins on the east side of the grove, both near, if not both on the Harry Smith place. They both left about the time of the breaking out of the Black Hawk War in 1832. That neither returned very soon is evident from the fact we hear nothing of Parish after, and Ankeny is found running a tavern at Buffalo Grove in 1832. The settlement of the grove really commenced in 1834. That year came Levi Warner, and settled of the south side of the grove; he was a surveyor, and held on the south side of the grove; he was a surveyor, and held the office of County Surveyor for several years after the organization of Carroll County. He came a bachelor, and as such kept his own cabin for some time. John H. Hawes resides where Warner first settled.
Alvin Humphrey in 1835 settled at the northeast corner of the grove. Caleb Dains and Tilton Hughes on the southwest corner. Levi Newman and a man by the name of Scott settled on the west side of the grove. This man Humphrey was the wag of the settlement until dethroned by Lyman Hunt, the auctioneer. John Knox and family, which includes George W. Knox, came in 1834 or 1835, and made a claim on the south side of the grove, and planted the first orchard in the county. George W. Knox now resides on the old place. About 1835 John Ankeny returned to the grove. In 1834 Uncle Harry Smith and Sample M. Jurney settled at the grove; the first where he now resides, the latter further east, on the farm on which the late Ransom Wilson died. Miles Z. Landon, Elder John Paynter, Joseph Steffins, Manassas Neikirk and Lyman Hunt came soon afterwards. Settlers now came in very fast, among them some of our present prominent citizens. Elijah Eaton built the first saw mill at the grove in 1837.
Elkhorn Grove celebrated Independence Day in form in 1837, at Alvin Humphrey’s. Felix Conner, a name suggestive of the Emerald Isle, delivered the oration. A man by the name of Peters, a millwright, in 1834, located on the Elkhorn creek bottom at Milledgeville; he got sick and gave up his claim to one Jesse Kester, who built a saw mill where the Milledgeville mill now stands. Kester sold his claim to Adam Knox, who built the grist mill. In 1839 his daughter Eliza J., was born and his son Albert died soon after; this was the first birth and this the first death at or near Milledgeville. In 1844 Jacob McCourtie was made Postmaster on the establishment of the Milledgeville office; at that time Milledgeville was more of a town than Mount Carroll.
In 1839 J. B. Johnson and his father, Simeon Johnson, Byron and Nelson Fletecher, Abel Eastabrooks, father of L. F., and the other Eastabrooks boys came into the present town of Wysox. About this time, some a little before and some a little later, among others the following persons had settled in the Elkhorn Grove region, in which I include Lima and Wysox: Tilson Aldrich, John Richardson, I. H. Woodruff, Hiram McNamer, George G. Colton, N. Spencer, Alvah Dains, Henry Hunter, E. W. Todd, Charles Redman, Stephen Jenkins, Philetus Peck, several by the name of Grant, D. Stormer, and lots of others.
With few exceptions the settlers still hugged the groves, the boldest only venturing a few miles on the prairie. The sweep of the cold wintry winds it was thought would render the prairie practically uninhabitable.
Two gentlemen who had sold their farms in Pennsylvania came to Milledgeville in 1840, with the intention of investing their means, which was considerable, in wild lands, and built themselves stately homes on broad western fields. Some parties accompanied them to show them the beautiful prairie between Milledgeville and Cherry Grove; after traversing their broad and undulating expanse, vast beyond anything of the kind they had before conceived of, came to the sage conclusion that the prairie was worthless, as it could never be inhabited to any extent for lack of timber. So they took their dollars and hastened back to Pennsylvania, and bought some of the timbered hills and mountains there.
A Mr. Ingalls was the first school teacher of that section, and taught at what is now known as Center School House.

MOUNT CARROLL
Samuel Preston, Sr. took the first claim and was the first settler in Mount Carroll township. His claim embraced the water power at Fulrath’s mill, and thence south to what has ever since been known as Preston Prairie. On the same day that Preston made his claim, Paul D. Otis and Granville Mathews, the first a stage driver, and the latter a stage agent for one Winters, the proprietor of the route from Peoria to Galena, made the second claim. Their claim joined on to Preston’s, and extended to and included the main part of the now city of Mount Carroll, and its mill site.
It seems that claims in those days were limited only by the stupidity of the claimants, and those intending to do the least on their claim, making claim to the largest tracts of land. In 1837, Otis and Mathews put up a cabin on their claim, near the old Christian homestead; Mathew’s father moved into the cabin. Soon after Otis and Mathews sold out their claim to a company composed of George Swaggart, Daniel Christian and Samuel M. Hitt, then of Ogle County, formerly of Boonesboro, Maryland, at the price of $1400; which sum had it been invested in prairie lands would have made both their fortunes. Unfortunately for these men the future was hid from their view, and like others they failed to take fortune at its flood.
In the fall of 1836, Nathan Downing took a claim, which he sold to his brother, Heman Downing, one year after, and was sold by him in 1856 to John Kinney, and the farm is still Kinney’s residence.
In the spring of 1837, the first white baby put in its appearance on the prairie. The child was a daughter of Nathan Downing, afterwards married to Gideon Carr. This spring Rezin Everts made claim to the old Beaver, now Trail farm. The same season Samuel S. Bayless claimed a part of section 12, where is now the Fair Grounds, and laid a town there which he named Richmond, from the capitol of his native state. He made liberal offers of lots to settlers, and two small houses were erected; but the crash killed Richmond, and it lives only in the memory of the old settlers. Bayless, however, had a controversy with Otis and Mathews as to the claim; they, like others, trying to slide their claim wherever any other person located, provided it was in sight of their original claim. Bayless wisely refused to be scared off.
The archives of the Postoffice Department will show that there was a Richmond in Carroll County from 1839 to 1841, when the whigs came into power under Harrison, and struck Richmond from the Postoffice books never to appear again. Several other settlers came in this season, among these Abner Downing and Edward C. Cochran; the former laid claim to the Sumner Downing farm, and the latter to the William Petty farm.
In the spring of 1838, Daniel Christian moved on the Otis and Mathews claim, and built the old saw mill down the creek; and William Mackay, elder brother of Duncan Mackay, and John George hired and ran the mill. This year Heman Downing erected the first frame barn of any size in the county. It was built of heavy oak timbers, and to raise it the united strength of all the neighbors from Plum River to Cherry Grove was necessary.
A circumstance connected with establishing the Richmond Postoffice, which shows the truth, according to George Washington, is better than a lie well framed, seems proper to be narrated here. A part of the settlers wanted old Squire Charles G. Hawley for P. M.; another part wanted Heman Downing. Both Hawley and Downing were whigs, and the administration, VanBuren’s, was democratic. So Downing’s friends ventured to assert in their petition for him that he was a Jeffersonian democrat; they thought that would settle the question, and it did. Both parties handed their petitions to Luther H. Bowman, of Savanna, to forward to Washington. Bowen was a democrat, and P. M. at Savanna; he looked over the petitions, just endorsed on Downing’s that Downing was a whig; said nothing as to Hawley’s politics, and Hawley got the post office.
This year George W. Stewart settled on the Samuel Haynes farm on the Savanna road, and a man by the name of Hinckley on the Daniel Crouse farm.
In 1839, a Rev. Mr. Whipple, a traveling Presbyterian, preached the first sermon on the prairie, and the first school was taught the same year by Sarah J. Hawley in the upper room of Samuel Preston, Sr.’s house.
About the year 1838 (the date, however, is uncertain), John Kinney, Joseph Ferrin, Rezin Everts and others were fishing, down Carroll creek early in the spring; all at once their attention was attracted by a great hissing and rattling. Looking around they found sunning themselves on the rocks along the banks of the creek numberless rattlesnakes. They went to work killing; after getting through they counted up the result of their work. The net result was one hundred and ninety rattlesnakes. It seems the whole population of a den in the rocky banks of the creek were taking their first airing, and came to their death by too great exposure.
A man by the name of Leonard built a grist mill at the site of the mill now owned by Adam Fulrath. The mill stones were quarried from the Galena limestone that crops out along the creek. One of the old stones is now to be seen at the mill.
Previous to the time to which we have already reached in our history, Sidney and Lewis Bliss, Jno. O’Neal, Benjamin Church, Joseph Ferrin, John Kinney and a few others had become residents of Preston Prairie, and David Masters had settled a half mile south of the Mount Carroll depot.
MOUNT CARROLL CITY
David Emmert and family, following the usual routes of travel at that time, from Pennsylvania to Illinois, the Ohio and Mississippi River, landed in Carroll County in May 1840. He resided the first year at Cherry Grove and kept the Cherry Grove tavern awhile. In the fall of 1841, N. Halderman came to the county and made Emmert’s acquaintance; he was looking up a good place to build a mill. Emmert, it seems, had the authority to act as Hitt’s agent, and called Halderman’s attention to the mill site in this city. Halderman examined the site some time in November, 1841, and in a few days the first mill company was formed, consisting of David Emmert, N. Halderman, John Rinewalt and Thomas Robinson, of the firm of Irvine and Robinson, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, under the firm name of Emmert, Halderman and Co.
They bought the mill site of S. M. Hitt and Co., and immediately commenced operations. They built the old log house at what is known as Stag Point, where I. P. Sheldon’s residence is situated, b the first of January 1842, Emmert had moved his family in, and the county had a small stock of goods bought at Galena, and was using one room of the three-tier log house for a store. On a Sunday about this time, Halderman fell in with Daniel Hurley, at Cherry Grove, who was en route to Galena with Hugh Slowry, and one or two other hands, to get a job of work. S few minutes sufficed to make a contract with Mr. Hurley to build the dam, and soon the sound of the shovel and the spade, and busy quarrymen, were heard in building the dame and laying the foundations of the mill. Some twenty or more hands were employed, until the mill was completed in November 1842. They were all boarded by the Emmert family at the long log house. Robinson soon withdrew from the firm on account of the opposition of his partner, Irvine.
The first residences after the one spoken of, built in Mount Carroll, were built by the hands employed in the erection of the mill, and those in some way connected with it. Jesse and Thomas Rapp had come during 1842, intending to unite their fortunes with the company, but changing their minds after getting here. Jesse built the house first south of the Stone Hotel, soon after the town was laid out, which was in December 1843. Some two or three houses were built in advance of the survey. A man by the name of Goltman, the first season built a house and lot in which is the store of John S. Miller. Some person the same year also built the house where William J. Wood now resides; it was used for a boarding house and kept by Thomas Rapp, in the year 1844. Except the stone hotel, built in 1844, the Wood house for a long time was the largest and best house in town.
The first blacksmith shop was down hear the cooper shop. Soon after Harlem Pyle built one just west of the race; afterwards rebuilt by Evan Rea. The first whiskey shop was the middle part of the Daniel Palmer building, now occupied by Joseph Kinney. This building was put up in somewhat of a hurry. The materials out of which it was made were standing in Arnold’s Grove in the morning, they were cut down, brought to town, and the building was completed, except plastering, before sundown. Coon Garner was builder and owner.
Robert Kennedy, father of the Kennedy boys, was the first miller. The well near Mill Street was dug in the spring of 1844. In the bottom at the place of finding water was found a perfectly preserved stick of red cedar. A man by the name of Moses Hart dug the well. A present resident of this city, on his way from Savanna to Cherry Grove, stopped at the well and inquired of Hart how far it was to Mount Carroll. I have heard of persons visiting New York, not being able to see the city, on account of the houses; but this man saw all there was then of Mount Carroll and didn’t even then suspect where he was.
John Brotherton, an uncle, and John Patterson, a relative of W. A. Brotherton, James Ferguson and William J. Mertz came in 1844. The county records were moved up in September, and John Wilson came with them. Drs. Hostetter, Abram, and John L., came in 1845; so also did Thomas T. Jacobs and Jared Bartholomew. The James Ferguson mentioned was kind of an original genius; was smart, a fluent talker, without a particle of religion. His presence would cure the blues at any time.
In the year 1845, also came John Irvine, Sr., Father Irvine, as we all loved to call him, with his family. Joe Miles, Mount Carroll’s first lawyer, came in 1844, and worked as carpenter on the Court House. Jesse Rapp’s daughter, Anna Mary, was Mount Carroll’s first born, Milford Kennedy the second. John Wilson was the first postmaster. The office was established in 1844; the mail was brought down from the Cherry Grove office by carrier until the fall of 1846, when the tri-weekly stage-coach, which had for years run upon the Dixon and Galena route through Cherry Grove, was changed to the route through Mount Carroll. The first state-coach was hailed by our citizens with wild enthusiasm; it seemed to bring them in connection with the outer world. The sight of that leather-spring Concord coach, drawn by its four-horse team, as it rumbled through the streets, drew its crowd of sight seekers, who gazed with wonder and admiration akin to awe.
The first school teachers of our common school were a man by the name of Anderson Paul, Turner, J. P. Emmert, and others. H. Bitner was the last, before the free school law. During the period of these teachers’ labors they relied for their pay solely upon voluntary subscriptions. Our present free school system of which we feel justly proud, was not adopted until 1855, yet at the same time there were school directors, but no school funds.
Mount Carroll’s first 4th of July oration was delivered by Chicago’s late Mayor, Hon. Thomas Hoyne, in the old Court House, which was then in process of erection but not finished.
During the years 1844 and 1845, Mount Carroll was the principal wheat market, not only of Carroll County, but Stephenson as well; and Savanna was the lumber market of an extent of country well towards Rockford. The grain teams were unloaded in the order of their arrival, and a line would, from day to day, extend from the mill up to the Court House square. At the same time the mill was grinding hundreds of bushels daily, and a large number of teams were constantly hauling flour to Savanna for shipment to St. Louis. This wheat was almost entirely paid for out of the company’s store. The company bought wheat with goods, paid for them in flour, paid their hands in goods, either to the workmen themselves, or to parties to whom they had given orders, in payment for those things they could not buy at the company’s store. Almost everything was sold at the store: dry goods, groceries, a few drugs, and produce of all kinds, even to watermelons and cucumbers. Besides the company, the earliest merchants were William Halderman, R. R. Brush, R. J. Tompkins, Thorp and Lull, Nathan Blair, John Irvine and Son, etc. I have a list extending down to the present day. Dr. Judd, brother of Hon. Norman B. Judd, was Mount Carroll’s first doctor. Soon after came the Drs. Hostetter, Dr. White, and in 1852 or 1853 Dr. B. P. Miller. Its first lawyers were Jo Miles, ???? Barker, John Wilson, and William T. Miller.
Until that good old saint, Father Irvine, came in 1845, religion was at a low ebb. There was occasionally one of the lost sheep of Israel to be found, but they were not numerous. Whether a Sunday School had been started before Mr. Irvine came is uncertain; that there was one soon after is certain. A short time previous to 1847, the Presbyterian Home Mission Society had placed Calvin Gray in the field, in this County. He first stopped at Savanna but came to Mount Carroll in 1845 or 1846. The Methodists had a mission here also; one Rev. Samuel Smith was the missionary in 1847. In that same year S. J. Campbell settled in Mount Carroll. At that time, there were but five members of that church in Mount Carroll. No other church had as many. They were John Irvine, Sr., Mary Irvine, his wife, Harlin Pyle and his wife, Elizabeth, and S. J. Campbell. Shortly after Daniel Christian and wife, who had belonged to the Dutch Reformed church, joined the Methodists.
Carroll County was created into a circuit in 1848; David Oliver, minister. The next year, Thomas North; the next, John Luckok; the next, Miles L. Read. He started a great revival; it swept through the community, picking up almost everybody in its course. On the wave of this revival the old M. E. Church was carried to completion. J. V. Allison came in 1854, and organized a Baptist church out of a few scattered Baptists, and a portion of Reed’s converts of two years previous. In the winter of 1854 and 1855, Allison and Gray, assisted by Decker, the Methodist, and Presiding Elder Haney, had something of a revival. The meetings were held at Grout’s church, a building in the rear of the lot on which stands S. J. Campbell’s house.
In 1857 an evangelist by the name of Esty (Baptist) and Rev. Robert Beaty (Methodist), assisted by Rev. D. H. Wheeler held successful revivals. The Baptist church and Methodist church were increased by scores. Another successful revival was held by Rev. Joseph Odgers (Methodist), in 1866 or 1867. About the same time Rev. H. L. Soule conducted a successful revival at the church of God, of which he was pastor. The result of Odgers’ labors is the new Methodist church.
Our graded school was started in the year 1857 or 1858, under the management of Miss Witt. She was a splendid teacher. She was followed by Hayes, Long, Smith and others. In 1866 our present Union School building was erected at a cost of $16,000. The school has met the expectations of the community and has and is doing a good work.
In 1845-6-7 along there, a great number of young men were in the habit of hanging around R. P. Thorp’s store; he was freehearted and generous to a fault. In his cellar were liquors in plenty. He had a grindstone in the cellar, and there was a great amount of grinding to be done. Some would be down every half hour to grind; at the end of six to twelve months the liquors were all gone, but the grindstone was good as new. But the liquor had lasted long enough to create an appetite for it on the part of many of the young, and middle aged in fact, and although the sound of the grinders was low at Thorp’s it ran high at the doggeries of the young town.
Some seeing the evil results upon themselves determined to break the thralldom, and they organized a Division of the Sons of Temperance; this was successful for a time. But in 1851-2 the Hydraulic Company was organized. On the supposition that it was to distill alcohol and that its products would not get into the market as whiskey, everybody almost took stock in the company; Sons of Temperance as well as others, and may of the old members of the order say the temperance distillery killed the order in Mount Carroll. Father Irvine was not fooled on the distillery question, and fought it with unyielding courage, a zeal worthy of success. Father Irvine would from time to time infuse a little energy into the temperance element of society, but it would languish and die out again. About 1863 or 1864, a Good Templars Lodge was organized here. It flourished a while and died. In April 1874 the present Division of Sons of Temperance was organized; it has flourished as yet, and promises fairly for the future.
Carroll Lodge No. 50, I. O. O. F., was chartered in ????, 1849. It has done a good work here that none but Odd-Fellows can judge of, as they alone know of the extent of its charities and the good it has accomplished. Carroll Lodge sent off as an off-shoot in 1874 Hill City Lodge No. 8. About three hundred and twenty persons have been made Odd-Fellows by these lodges, and about one hundred and thirty-five are still members in good standing.
YORK
Hon. Norman D. French is the oldest settler of York; he came there soon after 1834. He had somehow, by his early experience among the hills and mountains of Vermont, become disgusted with them, and by a kind of law of reaction he selected his present locality for a home, while assisting in 1834 in surveying for the United States those level Mississippi bottom lands. William Dyson, Sr., and his sons William Jr., and Hezekiah, and his son-in-law Russel Colvin, and George Helms, a relative, came in 1836. Mr. French made his claim in 1835; build his cabin and broke some of his land in 1836, and raised his first crop in 1837.
All these new settlers made their claims close to the bluffs, but extending no further back on to them than to secure some of those marvelous springs that gush from their base. A year or two later Heman Edgerly settled near French, and William St. Ores and Jacob Potter settled just west of the center of Town 23, Range 4, on Section 9, probably. I know of no further settlements until 1838, when Col. Beers Tomlinson located where his son Beers B. resides. His steps were turned to York township by the Preston family. Samuel Preston says of Col. Tomlinson: “He was a man of dignified presence, whom you would at once recognize as a man born to lead, not to follow.” Yet he had none of those airs of loftiness, expressive of great “I” and little “U.” His nature was social and jovial, and he relished a joke equal to the best in that line. His wife was a Bailey, and he was soon followed by that family and it’s kindred family - the Balcoms. His brother, Seymour Tomlinson, and the Athertons came afterwards. Only the following, however, got here before 1841: Daniel B. Kenyon and Joshua Bailey and his sons. Munroe was already of age.
Col. Tomlinson served in the War of 1812, as a captain, and as he was born almost in sight of old Fort Ticonderoga, he no doubt had some of the Ethan Allen spirit in him. After his company was called into service, they started to march to their rendezvous. At night it began to rain so they took up their quarters in a barn, the only building in the vicinity. As the company was quite large and the barn small, there was scarcely room for all to sleep in it, so he ordered them all to lie down spoon fashion, and he ordered that all should change their position at once. In fact, there was no alternative, so occasionally through the night he issued his commands, which were instantly obeyed, of “Spoon right” and then “Spoon left.”
It is said that the people of York are made up of two families, the Baileys and the Balcoms. I question whether there is now more than one, for these two families have so inter-married that it is difficult for some of them to say to which family in fact they belong. Harmon Colvin was the first child born in York. How York became York, and how she has with difficulty kept the name, is related elsewhere. Levi Kent was York’s first school teacher, and taught at Bluffville.
FREEDOM
Freedom has very little early history not included in Cherry Grove settlement. Owens’ Point, as it was called, where John C. Owens resided, was in the limits of Freedom, as were the farms of the Moffetts, Marks, Laird, and others. The Indians were numerous for several years after the Black Hawk War, and as late as 1835 or 36 a man kept a trading post at Owens’ Point, and traded guns, ammunition, calico, blankets, whiskey, etc., with Indians for peltries. Indeed, the Indians were not only a source of annoyance, but also a source of fear, especially to women and children.
SALEM
The earliest settlers of Salem that I have learned of were David Masters, George Swaggart, Seymour Downs, William Mackay, Duncan Mackay, and Henry Reynods. David Masters was the first settler in the town; he came in 1837.
ROCK CREEK
Rock Creek’s oldest settlers were David Becker and Zachariah Kinkade. Becker sold to Daniel Belding. Richard A. Thompson was an early settler, and introduced cheese making to the county.
LIMA
Her settlers were John Chambers and Philetus Peck; the latter located here about 1840.
WOODLAND

The first settlers were William Thompson and Moses Wooten. The Hendersons and the Gills came in 1842 or 1843. Uriah Green settled in Woodland in 18??.
SEMINARY
John Wilson, a Massachusetts Yankee, came up from Macoupin County and settled at first in Savanna, about the fall of 1840 or spring of 1841. He was clerk of the County Commissioners Court of the County, at the time of the removal of the County seat from Savanna to Mount Carroll, and removed his office to Mount Carroll in September, 1844. He was a liberal, though not classically educated man, in the full sense of the term, and took great interest in education.
William T. Miller, of Mount Carroll, having been elected a member of the Legislature in 1850, at the extra session in 1852 obtained the passage of a bill prepared by Judge Wilson, incorporating Mount Carroll Seminary. John Wilson, N. Halderman, Calvin Gray, Leonard Goss, David Emmert, B. P. Miller, James Hallett, James Ferguson, and John Irvine, Sr. were the corporators named in the Act. By means of business relations with parties in New York State, Judge Wilson in 1853 became cognizant of the fact that two ladies, late graduates of the New York Normal School, at Albany, were anxious to start out in their chosen field of labor in some thriving section of the West, and through his representations and earnest endeavors these ladies came to our place in the spring of 1853, and became the head of our Seminary enterprise.
I need not tell you that these ladies were Francis A. Wood and Cinderilla M. Gregory. They opened the Seminary that spring, in the second story of the then only brick store in town, known now as the Ashway building. In the summer of 1854 the trustees erected a building, part of the present institution and in doing so got greatly involved. While the school was prosperous, it gave no evidence of furnishing a surplus with which to relieve the weight of debt resting upon it. The people were unable to respond to the financial demands, and it seemed that the institution must be crushed with its weight of debt. At this crisis the principals proposed in case the stockholders would assign them the stock, they would take the Seminary just as it was, with all its load of debt, and pay that off themselves. Our people gladly availed themselves of this way out of the embarrassment, and since then it has been their private property, at first of the two teachers named, and since about the year 1870 the private property of Mrs. F. A. W. Shimer, Miss Gregory at that time retiring from the institution.
The judgment and ability with which the Mount Carroll Seminary has been managed since it passed out of the control of the stockholders may be understood when we say that it is probably the only Seminary in the United States that has been self-sustaining for any considerable period, and this has been not only self-sustaining, but if what we see of its progress and prosperity is not far different than what is supposed in our community, it has built its several additions and added many acres of land to the domain of its owners.
In its earlier life this institution afforded opportunities for educating both sexes, but for the last twelve or fifteen years girls only have enjoyed its advantages. Our people it seems to us, have hardly appreciated this institution as they ought; and they do not seem to realize the vast benefits it has conferred upon our city and county, and we might say State as well. As we can gather but a faint idea of what influence upon the ocean one stream however small may have, so we are unable to say what share of the culture, of the refinement, the happiness, the esthetic development of our nation has been the contribution of our Mount Carroll Seminary. But when we reflect that this institution has educated not less than three thousand of the fathers, mothers, sons and daughters of our land, we know that its volume of influence, which it has sent into the great sea of life, which will flow from thence into the boundless ocean of eternity, has been and is of vast and increasing proportions.
Of the teachers of this institution who have been longest and most favorably known amongst us, we might mention Miss Shotwell, Prof. W. H. Silvernail, Miss Daly, Miss Holman, Miss Dearborn, Miss Gross, Miss Clark, Miss Joy, Miss White and Miss Mary White, and others no doubt there have been whose names even we fail to recall to memory. To the excellent ability of Miss Joy, since her connection to the school as successor to Miss Gregory, as head and manager, and the patrons for the careful training and judicious oversight of their daughters’ mental and moral growth.
I have said of the self sustaining character of the institution, taking its whole life period into consideration, is correct yet there was a time in its history, except for the timely assistance rendered the institution financially by Mr. Isaac Nash, of Saratoga County, New York, it must have failed. At a time of pressing need, this kind-hearted old gentleman cast his bread upon the waters, in the shape of a loan to the school, never stopping to calculate whether it would return after many days, or return at all.
To correct quite a common impression in our community that the stockholders had paid a large sum into the treasury of the Seminary that went into the original building, the benefit of which was received by the persons mention, by the assignment of stock to them, we add here that the whole amount paid by the stockholders on their subscriptions of stock did not exceed one thousand dollars. We may hope that the present prosperity of this school may continue, and its field of influence become more extended from year to year.
NEWSPAPERS
The newspaper enterprises of the county have been many and of varying success. The first paper started was the Mount Carroll Tribune, by Dr. J. L. Hostetter, editor; this was in the year 1851, and it was printed in Freeport. Its life was considerably less than a year.
In 1852, J. P. Emmert started the Carroll County Republican. Emmert sold out to H. G. Gratton in the winter of 1853. Gratton made a good paper of it. Mount Carroll is indebted to Henry G. Gratton for a considerable of her early prosperity. She has not since had a more live editor or paper.
In 1854, one Charles Allen and Smith D. Atkins, now Gen. S. D. Atkins, of Freeport, started the Savanna Register; they sold it out to Gratton in a few months.
Gratton sold out the Republican to D. H. Wheeler in 1855, and Wheeler to D B. Emmert in 1857. D. B. Emmert sold to Dr. J. L. Hostetter. In the meantime George English had started the Home Intelligencer. Hostetter took Dr. E. C. Cochran as a partner in the Republican; then Hostetter sold out to English and Cochran, and they united the two papers and called it the Republican and Intelligencer. They soon dissolved; English renewed the publication of the Intelligencer, and Hostetter the Republican. Mrs. Shimer and Gregory bought the Republican office of Hostetter, and a teacher named Silvernail and a pupil named Ladd edited it awhile, and then it died. English ran his paper through the campaign of 1860, the writer acting as political editor. Soon after the election the paper died, and Mr. English died not long after.
The Carroll County Mirror was started in 1858, by Alexander Windle and I. V. Hollinger; that paper has changed hands several times but still lives under the fostering care of W. D. Hughes.
The other newspaper enterprises of the County have been the Lanark Banner, in 1863 or 1864, by J. R. Howlett. This he sold to J. E. Millard about the year 1866 or 1867, and which died a few years later.
In 1866 or 1867, Howlett associated John M. Adair with him and started the Carroll County Gazette. Some of the time he also published what was called the Shannon Gazette and Thomson Courier; they were however little less than the Carroll County Gazette, with a change of heading.
The later newspaper enterprises have been the Shannon Gazette, by Dr. Mastin; then changed to the Savanna Times by W. Mastin and S. Greenleaf; published now by Mr. Greenleaf and b the way a good paper.
Then there was the Mount CarrollNews, by Frank A. Beeler, started in 1875. From its ashes, Phoenix like, has sprung the last but not least newspaper, the Carroll County Herald.

ORGANIZATION OF THE COUNTY By an act of the legislature of the State of Illinois, approved February 22nd, 1839, Carroll County was organized with its present boundaries. By the same Act, the east one-half of towns 23, 24 and 25, range 7, were attached to Ogle County; before that time the same constituting a part of Jo Daviess County, the same as the territory erected into the County of Carroll. The fact that that territory was attached to the County of Ogle shows that the influence of Savanna shaped the boundaries of the County.
At that time the largest population at any point in the County was at Savanna; the next largest at Elkhorn Grove and vicinity; the third point of most considerable importance was Cherry Grove; the fourth was what we call Preston Prairie, including what is known as the Bailey settlement, in the town of York. In the territory thus forced upon Ogle County was another settlement, at what is known as Chambers Grove, which the citizens, like those of Cherry Grove, were principally Marylanders. It was apparent, therefore, if the Chambers Grove settlement was included in the limits of Carroll County, the vote of Elkhorn Grove, Chambers Grove and the assistance that Cherry Grove might be expected to render in that direction, would send the County seat either to Elkhorn Grove or vicinity of Cherry Grove. To provide against that contingency, those rich half-townships were sent to enlarge the already large County of Ogle, and the natural boundaries of our own County contracted to a like extent.
As a measure also to conciliate the good will of Cherry Grove, Savanna yielded the right of nomenclature of the County to the Cherry Grove people, and they being mostly Marylanders, christened it after that grand old Marylander whose name is as illustrious as almost any of his associate signers of the immortal Declaration of Independence, which will be read to you today, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, a great name for a glorious little County.
By the same act creating the County, the first election for County officers, and to locate County seat, was fixed for the 2nd Monday of April, 1839. At that election Savanna received 126 votes for county seat, and Section 9, Town 24, Range 5, being near Abram Rohrer’s received 86 four county seat. The following named persons were elected the first county commissioners of the county: Sample M. Jurney, Garner Moffett, and Luther H. Bowen. The first drew the three year’s term, and the last, one year; Hezekiah Francis, of Savanna, was elected Sheriff; William B. Goss, clerk of county commissioners court; Royal Cooper, recorder; Aaron Pierce, treasurer, Mason C. Taylor, coroner, and John C. Owings, probate justice of the peace; and at the regular election in August 1839, the same officers were re-elected, except that Marshall B. Pierce succeeded his father as treasurer, and John Eddows succeeded Bowen as county commissioner.
The first justices of the peace elected after the county organization were John Knox, George W. Christian, George W. Haris, Royal Cooper, Leonard Goss, and Caleb Dains. The old justices elected before the county organization, who by the act of organization acted as county canvassers of the votes at the first election, were John Knox, Leonard Goss, Alvin Humphreys, Benjamin Church, and J. C. Owings.
The terms of office of clerk of county court and county treasurer were four years, sheriff two years. Offices did not pay the holder and few cared for them; and as there was generally a vacancy in some office by reason of resignation, or failure to qualify, our settlers were accustomed to have from one to three special elections per year. In 1840, Hezekiah Francis was elected sheriff in August, in November and again in December; and Mason C. Taylor, coroner, twice the same or succeeding year.
Presuming human nature to be the same now as then, we may conclude that our officers serve us more on account of the salary than they do for their zeal for the general welfare. Now we hear of none resigning, or failing to qualify, and very few dying while in office. They also indulged in those days in the innocent amusement of voting on questions directly affecting their interests perhaps, not legally submitted for their determination. Thus we find that at the August election in 1843, the four precincts in which the county was then divided, and had been since its organization, voted as follows: Preston precinct, for removing county seat, 68 votes, against 1: Elkhorn Grove precinct, for being annexed to the territory of Wisconsin, 68 votes; to remain with the State of Illinois, 2 votes; Cherry Grove precinct, for convention 28 votes: Savanna, for convention, 41 votes, against convention 14 votes; no two of the precincts voting upon the same question, except Savanna and Cherry Grove. Why Elkhorn Grove so unanimously wished to separate from this grand fertile State of Illinois and annex herself to the sandy, pine state of Wisconsin perhaps our friend, Nelson Fletcher, Esq. can tell us, as he seems to have been one of the secession voters.
The following were the Grand and Petit Juries that first served Carroll County:
Grand Jury -- Alvah Dains, Henry Hunter, John Ankeny, Harry Smith, Tilson Aldrich, Israel Jones, Francis Garner, Isaac Chambers, Joseph Taylor, Edward C. Cochran, John Knox, Samuel Preston, Joshua Bailey, Beers Tomlinson, Amos Leonard, Elijah Stearns, William Dyson, Sr., Jas. M. French, Royal Jacobs, Vance L. Davison, Miles C. Robinson, Jas. Kimball.
Petit Jury -- Joshua McKillops, Stephen N. Arnold, David L. Bowen, W. L. B. Jenks, M. W. Hollingsworth, Jonathan Cummings, Samuel L. Bayless, John B. Christian, Rezin Everts, Squire Garner, Alfred Newman, Henry Jenkins, John Fuller, Richard Wright, William Blundell, M. B. Pierce, David Ashby, Benjamin Church, David Masters, Garner Moffett, Samuel Yontz, Joseph Hire, Daniel Stormer.
At the time of the organization of the County, a provision was made for a term of the Circuit Court in September 1839. The County Commissioners selected a grand and petit jury, but the court was not held. The Circuit Court convened for the first time in June 1840. Hon. Dan Stone, Judge presiding. His first act was to appoint Leonard Goss, Clerk. The Court dismissed the grand and petit jurors, for irregularity in the manner of summoning. A few cases were dismissed, the balance continued to the next term, except the Court heard and decreed a divorce in the case of Jeremiah Humphreys vs. Catharine Humphreys.
At the October term the first case was tried. The parties were Catharine Schramling vs. Benjamin Church, appeal. The case was tried October 6, 1840. I insert the names of the jury trying the case, to-wit: John McKillops, William Blundell, Joseph Hire, Jonathan Cummings, Daniel Stormer, Rezin Everts, Squire Garner, David L. Bowen, William L. B. Jenks, Stephen Arnold, Garner Moffett, John Fuller. Judgment for plaintiff. Of course a first jury in Carroll County would not be so ungallant as to give a judgment against a woman.
At this term, the Court heard another divorce case, continued from the last term, Dudley C. Humphreys vs. Lavina Humphreys. Drummond solicitor. Two brothers, you see, apply at the same term of court for divorce. Bear this in mind, young ladies, and never marry a man named Humphreys; and by the way, Solicitor Drummond, in these cases, is none other than Hon. Thomas Drummond, Judge of the United States Circuit Court. If he would now examine the decrees in those cases, I doubt whether he would think them good and sufficient. The first slander suit tried in the county was John D. Brown plaintiff vs. Eli Walker defendant; the verdict in this case was $25, good and lawful money in the United States.
Hon. Dan Stone did not preside as judge after October 1840. During the winter of 1841, the legislature, to get rid of the Judges of the Supreme Court, a majority of whom were whigs, increased their number to the same number as there were circuits and provided that the judges should hold the circuit courts as well. Under this arrangement Thomas C. Brown was elected judge. Clerk of the circuit court was an appointive office then. Judge Brown re-appointed Leonard Goss clerk of the circuit court to continue during good behavior; he had previously been appointed by Stone.
At the first term of Court, Carroll County had one lawyer, John A. Wakefield. John Wilson came about 1841. The lawyers practicing at the bar at Savanna were Drummond, M. P. Sweet, Hoge, Campbell, and Washburne of Galena, Wells of Rock Island, and Chase of ???? And James McCoy of Whiteside.
Until the adoption of the constitution of 1848, three County Commissioners were the legislature of the County, possessing all the powers of our present Board of Supervisors and Commissioners of Highways. After the new Constitution these same powers were vested in the County Court, constituted of the County Judge and two Associate Justices of the Peace.
I wonder what our present race of hotel keepers would say to legislation such as the following passed March 5th, 1844 by Beers Tomlinson, Henry Smith, and John C. Owings, county commissioners, to wit. “March 5th, 1844 ordered that the following be Tavern rates in the County of Carroll up to March 1845. Each person per meal, not exceeding 25 cents; “Horse to hay and grain per day 50 cents; Lodging one person 12 ½ cents; All kinds of liquors per drink 6 ¼ cents.” It may strike some of you that the commissioners had no such power of legislation; still it was a valid law, if they had been authorized by the legislature of the State to legislate upon the subject.
The theory of English law is that Parliament is Supreme. The theory of our system of government derived from the English system is that the legislature of a State can legislate upon any subject not prohibited by the State Constitution or by grants of power to the general government; in other words legislatures possess all powers of legislation except those the people have by express terms taken from them by their written Constitutions.

REMOVAL OF COUNTY SEAT
The laying of the foundation of the mill was the beginning of the existence of our little city of Mount Carroll, though it was not named until the year after, and the voting was still at Preston Prairie, and in that precinct; the mill was finished in 1842. In the winter of 1843 the legislature passed the law granting the people of the county the power to vote on the question of the re-location of the county seat. John Dixon, the father of the city of Dixon, Illinois, Moses Hallett and Nathaniel Belcher were appointed commissioners to plant a stick upon a site to be voted for or against, as the future seat of justice for the county. Two of the commissioners, John Dixon and Moses Hallett, fixed the site for the stake at or near the west line of the street on top of the hill, near the Baptist Church, and no doubt from the fact that the point was the highest in the vicinity, from which the ground sloped in all directions, and was in fact, quite an elevated hill; and as there was to be a town there laid out by the county authorities, if it was selected for the county seat, they named the locality, and future city, Mount Carroll.
That the Court House was not built on the site fixed is explained by the fact that afterwards the county arranged with Emmert, Halderman and Co., to convey to them the grounds donated by them and George W. Christian, and in consideration they were to, and did, erect the old stone Court House, on the present Court House square, which, fortunately for the county, inasmuch as she had $2,000 insurance on the same, was burned down in 1872. The vote on the removal of the county seat was had in August 1843, but the offices were not moved to Mount Carroll until September 1st, 1844. One fact in connection with the vote for removal of county seat seems almost inexplicable, and that is that David Masters, having large property interests in the immediate vicinity of Mount Carroll voted for Savanna.
In the year of 1849, Carroll County, by vote of its people, adopted the system of township organization. John Wilson, R. H. Gray, and Rollin Wheeler were commissioners to affix boundaries, and name the several towns. The commissioners divided the county into ten towns, to wit: Cherry Grove, Freedom, Woodland, Savanna, Mount Carroll, Salem, Lima, Elkhorn Grove, Wysox, and Harlem changed to York by the Board of Supervisors November 14, 1850, upon motion of Munroe Bailey, supervisor of that town. The boundaries of the towns were the same as now, except that Shannon was attached to Cherry Grove, the east half of Rock Creek to Lima, and the west half of Salem; Fair Haven was divided up between York, Wysox and Salem, the latter towns having each ¼, York ½.
The first Board of Supervisors consisted of Jared Bartholemew, Mount Carroll; Henry F. Lowman, Freedom; Daniel P. Holt, Salem; Rollin Wheeler, Wysox; Sample M. Jurnay, Elkhorn Grove; George Sword, Cherry Grove; Monroe Bailey, Harlem-York; John Donaldson, Lima; Reuben ? Gray, Savanna; Thomas Vandagrift, Woodland.
Before township organization in the year 1844 or 1845, the ?? (voting precincts)?? Had been increased by two, to-wit: Harlem and Rush Creek. The latter embraced the present territory of Washington and Woodland. The towns of Rock Creek and Fair Haven with their present boundaries were created by resolution of the board granting the prayer of petitioner for same March 22nd, 1855. At that time neither of said towns had but one or two, if any, over 30 legal voters in its limits, the number requisite to petition for the creation of the new town. The next year, March 10th, the town of Washington was erected with its present boundaries. Dr. Leonard Pratt was the first Supervisor of Rock Creek; Dr. Nathan Stephenson, of Fair Haven, and Carroll County’s often elected Coroner, Mason C. Taylor, of Washington.
Elkhorn Grove received its name from the numerous elkhorns found in the Grove by the first settlers; Cherry Grove, from the many wild cherry trees growing in the grove at the time of settlement in the neighborhood; Woodland from the fact that its whole territory was woodland originally; Salem was named from Salem, Massachusetts, the scene of witches and witch burnings of ancient times; Rock Creek from the creek of that name which rises through it; Lima, I suppose, from the South American city of the same name; Wysox from a town of that name in Bradford county, Pennsylvania, from whence many of its early settlers came; York from York being settled almost entirely by New York State people; Savanna from the village, and that was named by the first settlers from the fact that the word Savanna described the character of the lands on which it was located.
The persons who have administered your County offices since the organization of the county, and those whose official authority included the territory of your county are as follows: Circuit Court - Hon. Dan Stone, Hon. Thomas C. Brown, Hon. Benjamin R. Sheldon, Hon. Ira O. Wilkinson, Hon. John W. Drury, Hon. John V. Eustace, and his Honor W. W. Heaton, our present able Judge, our Senator, J. M. Hunter, and H. A. Mills, Representatives residents of the county; Henry Smith, William T. Miller, Porter Sargeant, Rollin Wheeler, James DeWolf, Benjamin L. Patch, Joseph F. Chapman, D. W. Dame, Elijah Funk, Adam Nase, James Shaw, and Norman D. French. Clerks of County Commissioners Court and County Clerks - William B. Goss, John Wilson, R. W. Brush, Leonard Goss, Valentine Bohn, Benjamin L. Patch, R. G. Bailey, R. M. A. Hawk. Recorders and Clerks of Circuit Court - Leonard Goss, clerk. This officer was appointed by the Circuit Court Judge until 1848. Royal Cooper, recorder; J. P. Emmert, circuit clerk and recorder; V. Armour, B. P. Shirk, A. Nase, J. F. Allison, D. B. Smith.
Sheriffs - Hezekiah Francis, Sumner Downing, John B. Rhodes, Rollin Wheeler, Charles Bennett, S. S. Dunn, J. B. Johnson, Adam Nase, Miles Z. Landon, Joseph M. Wherritt, George W. Graves, George P. Sutton, Allen McClure; George P. Sutton, two terms since. Probate Justices and County Judges - John C. Owings, and Leonard Goss, probate justices. County Judges - George W. Harris elected 1848, resigned; David Emmert to fill vacancy; Cornelius Van Veghton resigned, Thomas Rapp to fill vacancy, Reuben H. Gray, John Wilson, Benjamin L. Patch.
School Commissioner - Garner Moffett, from creation of office to 1855: D. H. Wheeler, James DeWolf, Nelson Fletcher, James E. Millard. County Surveyors - Levi Warner, Philandor Seymour, Elijah Funk, Lucius S. Thorp. County Treasurers - Aaron Pierce, 1839; Marshall B. Pierce, 1839; William L. B. Jenks, 1841; G. W. Christian, 1845; T. T. Jacobs, 1849; N. Halderman to 1857, Owen P. Miles to 1873, J. F. Allison 1873 and 1875.
Mason C. Taylor was the first coroner; he filled that office many years. Mr. Taylor was one of the oldest settlers of the County and now resided in Washington township, where he first located.
As a part of the history of the county, it may not be out of place to note the fact that the first marriage in the county, after it was organized as the county of Carroll, was the marriage of Marshall B. Pierce to Julia Ann Baker, on August 26, 1839, by Benjamin Church, justice of the peace. This estimable lady, I am pained to record, died of cholera at Savanna, I think, on the night of July 4, 1854. The first marriage by a minister of the Gospel was that of John Baker to Mrs. Almira Humphreys, by John H. Prentiss, minister.
While on the subject of marriages what we find recorded as a fact and what we fail to find recorded we may as well also state, it appears that a license was issued by the clerk of the county commissioners’ court, on January 10, 1840, authorizing the marriage of John Fuller to Miss Sarah Ashby, but there is no return showing that the marriage ever took place. The failure of a return I am very sure will jeopardize no right of property at his decease. I would not advise expense in consulting lawyers on the question.
The first will admitted to probate in the county was the will of Peter D. Noel.
At the Presidential election in 1840, there were 313 votes cast, as follows:

Harrison VanBuren

Savanna Precinct 74 50

Preston 33   2

Elkhorn Grove 102   9

Cherry Grove 35   8

In Preston precinct, David Masters and Sumner Downing were the two who voted for VanBuren. Even Uncle John O’Neal was a Harrison man.
This sketch of the history of Carroll County is not complete. I find that to make it longer is not proper. I omitted entirely a history of our Agricultural Society, and also the military history of the County. I may yet complete these omissions. Should it be thought advisable, I may extend this ? (history?) in the future to a small volume. (I wish to)? Extend my thanks to M. B. Pierce for information I obtained from a manuscript of his relating to the early history of Savanna; also to Samuel Preston, for the early history of Preston precinct and vicinity; and to Hon. J. Shaw, for the use of his notes of the early history of Cherry Grove and Elkhorn Grove.
By an oversight of the printers a part of this article was not in print, in the last issue, and as the whole could not be presented in its proper connection, it was reserved for this issue.
V. ARMOUR
* Some portions of the microfilm from which this article was taken were unreadable. We tried to decipher them best as we could, but are not absolutely positive that they are correct.
Alice Horner’s note: The above note is original to the transcription made in 1980 and published by the Lanark Public Library. The question marks in the text were from the 1980 transcription; I've just copied them. I have transcribed the transcription made in 1980. I have never seen the original text (in microfilm) and cannot verify how close the 1980 transcription is to the original.

Biography
Volney Armour & Family

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