Village of Jacobstown
Whiteside County Illinois
Carroll County Illinois
"The Prairie Advocate", Carroll County IL
The Jacobs Family
March 30, 1988, April 13, 1988 & April 20, 1988
Written by Caralee Aschenbrenner
Contributed by Alice Horner & Leroy Getz
Contributed by Lynn Roberts
| There were two towns that were called "Jacobstown" fairly close to each other. One was in Whiteside County in Mt. Pleasant Township, the other was located in neighboring Carroll County in Mt. Carroll Township. This is the story of both of these small towns, both of which are now long gone. My hope is to find how they are "related" to each other. The surname of Jacobs is predominant in both counties so there is every reason to believe that the two towns and the two families are connected. |
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March 30, 1988 Article Jacobstown, Whiteside County was begun in 1836 with the construction of a simple sawmill by the inventor of the steampowered iceboat. The later mill and settlement around it were gone by about 1890. The stones from the mill are said to have been used to build a house in nearby Morrison.
Those were the days when schemes could be schemed and nobody said, you shouldn't. Jonathon Haines scheme might have haunted him in dreamlike fashion all the way from Tazewell County as he traveled north toward the lead mines. Should he do it? Could he do it? Only most recently had such worked with any practicality. Nobody said he couldn't (that we know about). And if they laughed, he'd soon have the last one because Jonathon Haines saw a need and attempted to fulfill it although in a most unusual way for the year 1835. And it worked! There seemed a need, a desire, if you will, for mail to be more speedily conveyed from Galena's thriving lead mines and other of settlements along the river and go to the upper reaches of the Mississippi, the fur trading posts and the forts there like Ft. Snelling, Minnesota. Especially in the winter when boats could not glide over the great waterway of the Mississippi was there a need for the mail to move faster. Many weeks might elapse between delivering mail, the news and orders and their sending, due to the cruel conditions of season and territory. Jonathon Haines had just the idea to solve the problem. He built and, in fact, patented a steampowered iceboat. Surely others might have thought of the same now that Robert Fulton had put steam on wheels and steam was driving boats along all the rivers. Why not a steam iceboat? It was an invention worth notice as would be the "Illinois Harvester" threshing machine Haines would patent later when he was settled in at his place in Whiteside County. But for now he worked to perfect the iceboat. A description of it says that Haines and J.D. Carson built a steam "sleigh" in the fall of 1835 designed to run between Galena and Dubuque. It sounds quite a pretentious size. It was a covered, enclosed affair provided with doors, windows and seats, and all was "as comfortable as the saloon of a steamboat." Ah, can you picture it? Smoke and steam rising in the brittle cold air of a JoDaviess winter. Echoes of men intent and strange machine bouncing off the valley walls of the natural amphitheater of the Fever River at Galena where it was first applied. The noise brings miners from their badger holes and huts, those who where veterans of life in mineral digs pondered now at the queer ministratios of late comer from Tazewell. Deer, startled bys ound, run. Squirrels, surprised at first, pause and watch, wondering if this was the biggest nut of all. But the machine did run. A few trips at least. Who could fault Jonathon Haines for daring to dream? Although it was said to have been used a few times from Galena to Dubuque, its scheme was not to be realized and some said it was a failure but the Galena Gazette stated, "Unfortunately, its engine was to small and there was not sufficient power to make it go." The paper prophesized, however, that a steam sleigh was "destined" to come into general use. If Haines worked to perfect the steam iceboat we don't know it. Talk of railroads were in the air and they seemed more practical and all seasonal. The steam iceboat was ahead of its time or Jonathon Haines interests had turned elsewhere. Although Hines was "sanguine of carrying the US Mail' with his steam iceboat, its doubtful that the government was much interested in such harebrained modernity and cost cutting speed. Nothing more is heard about the steampowered snow mobility machine. But of the clever Jonathon Haines we learn a bit more. Perhaps it was because the promotion and perfecting of the steam iceboat foundered that he looked elsewhere. Or maybe elsewhere seemed more desireable than the seasonal irregularities and dangers of carrying mail over the ice in a risky machine that we find him that same year, 1835, developing also more traditional pastimes. On his way through the Illinois countryside he was struck by the beauty and posibilities of a site in Whiteside County in Mt. Pleasant Township (section 7) just outside the north Limits of present day Morrison. Like many of his time he looked for a place which recommended itself to the building of a mill. There on Rock Creek in 1835 Jonathon Haines put up a cabin where Felix French stayed the first winter to hold the claim and, we assume, while Haines tinkered with his iceboat. The following year Haines returned to construct a sawmill which had an even more shortlived history of use than the steampowered iceboat for when after sawing just one log a freshet swept away the mill. The next year, however, he tried again. Newly arrived in the summer of 1837 at neighboring Lyndon was Ambrose Maxwell who came over to help construct a second Haines mill and about whom is remarked that "he ran it a short time and sawed hardwood lumber," afterward to attach a pair of buhrs to grind grain. On Christmas Day, December 25, 1837, that first grain was ground, the waterwheel turned and the real history of the place began Haines in the next years engaged in numerous activities other than that mill such as a harvester manufactory over at Unionville which was near nucleus for a later Morrison. Haines also platted out a ten acre town just west of the Haines Mill and called it "Illinois City." In spite of offering the l ots in it free, it never succeeded. In the meantime during the year 1837-1838 some of the numerous Jacobs families had arrived in the area among them Hosea who became one of the first active county officers, and promoters plus the Royal Jacobs, senior and junior, his nephews. Early Whiteside County business in 1841 gave a Royal Jacobs permission to extend by three months the time it would take to build a horse ferry to replace the previously used skiff or flatboat which transported man, beast and material across the "Narrows of the Mississippi," as Fulton as then known. It appears that this scheme was not fulfilled because history says that three years later he gave it up in sale to Augustin Phelps who ran the first horsepowered ferry at that point. As there were two Royal Jacobs we know not just which this ferryman was, but we do learn that a Mr. Jacobs also took on the management of Jonathon Haines mill which was later to be impressively described as being 40' x 52', four and a half stories high, besides a basement. There were two overshot wheels and a 12' head of water, three run of buhr for grinding and separate "bolts," or sieves, for sifting for the custom or merchant trade. Whether all this improvement resulted from Haines instigation or the Jacobs' is not clear. The former left Whiteside to return to Tazewell County in 1849 so we may assume that it was under Royal Jacobs management that the mill flourished for many years. The Jacobs Mill was bought in 1865 by Wm. St. John and Wm. Brown who ran it for a fewyears hoping to add a woolen mill to the waterpower but which did not progress beyond the suggestion of it. Around that site begun as just one dream of Jonathon Haines of iceboat fame there grew up a place of some importance, a "large place of trade iwth a general store, a blacksmith shop, a cooper shop" and other of the industry contingent on and auxiliary to milling and the vital needs of the neighborhood. All evidence of tha village which was known as "Jacobstown" had ceased to be however, by the late 1870's except for the mill itself and that was razed by about 1890. The Whiteside County history says, "small collections of settlers were usually made in the vicinity of mills where people came long distances to have grain ground" and thus came into existence countless little hamlets such as this one, Jacobstown. Their importance in serving as a community should not be underestimated. Morrison did not come on the scene until the mid-1850's when the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad was scouting through the area which was then known as Unionville, a few miles down Rock Creek from Jacobstown. Unionville was where yet today you may see the large stone mill on Rt. 78 on the north edge of Morrison. William Annan who ran the Unionville Mill for many years, apprenticed at the Haines - Jacobstown mill previously. Without more intrepid search, which we will not attempt, we don't know which Royal Jacobs, senior or junior, was the manager of the ferry on the Mississippi or which the manager of the grand mill which was Jacobstown. We do know, however, that carroll County's census of 1840 also lists a Royal Jacobs who was between 40 and 50 years old (census' weren't so detailed then). Those pioneers wore many hats but to be counted in the census and to serve as grand juror as Royal Jacobs did in Carroll County in 1841, residence in that county must be assured. So we surmise that both Whiteside and Carroll had a Royal Jacobs, perhaps the elder, living here in Carroll. If there was a third, we'll be darned. It's too much to contemplate. In fact, there were many Jacobs families who came to this area at an early date; Elinathan who blew up but did not perish, when the blasting powder mill exploded in 1845. Wm. C., Elias, Elijah, John, Nathan and Thomas or T.T. who became a longtime prominent merchant in Mt. Carroll. There were others too. That they must have been related in some way is seen in the census by their birth places, the generations overlapping and the patterns being similar; Ireland, Canada, Vermont, etc., which serves also as a guide to immigration of that period. If they were not related it would be odd. Among the several Jacobs families in the two counties was Benjamin Jacobs in Carroll whom we find also in the 1840 census, a young man, ambitious perhaps to make a place for himself in the world. If the Jacobs down in Whiteside were a model to Benjamin it may have come to serve him well. for around a mill which he would build, a town would also grow, Jacobsville, Carroll County. A 1902 obituary of a former Jacobsville resident stated that the deceased had lived first at OLD Jacobstown near Morrison and in 1851 he had moved to the new Jacobstown near Mt. Carroll. The emphasis on "old" leaped out and prompted search for a connection between the two burgs of the Jacobs and what, if any, was the common thread. How the Carroll County Jacobstown, too, fit into the history of the Lewistown Trail, as the marker by the Center Hill Cemetery, Rt. 64, states was part of the initial project. That first village was called Jacobstown and the later in Caroll County, Jacobsville, but because the first has long ceased to exist the second has slowly evolved to become known as Jacobstown now also. If we know it at all, that is, because it, too, like the one of our neighbor south, it is as history says, "a town and trading post in name only."
 Perhaps you would like to visit the site of Old Jacobstown and take a look again at the Unionville Mill, one of the few existing mills in Illinois. Take Rt. 78 into Morrison where the mill is situated at the bridge on Rock Creek. A few blocks farther along turn to the left at Base St. just before the traffic lights. This winds up the hill and High St. to Genesee St. by the cemetery and the Northside Grade School. Turn left and wind northish down the hill this time to the Red Bridge with another left turn across Rock Creek onto Crosby Road. About a mile north on Crosby there is a stone veneered house at a sharp curve. Norrish Road from the west once ran on a diagonal by this house and across Rock Creek. On the east side of the steep banked, narrow creek about opposite was the site of the Jacobstown Mill. The stage line is said to have run north along the banks of the creek on that road. As always, its difficult to think that once this, like so many other sites, was a busy little settlement. All evidence of it has ceased to be. By continuing up the road a short way you'll find a stop sign; straight ahead takes you back to Rt. 78 or by turning right you visit one of our newest parks, Morrison-Rockwood, which has a large lake, wooded area and great picnic and fishing facilities. Who'd ever believe that the trickle on Carroll St. in Lanark is this Rock Creek with its wild, narrow ravins here and which once had spilling water enough to supply those grand old mills; little settlements along the way. The many attractive homes which surround the area and the park itself tell us, however, that the site around Old Jacobstown is still thriving and other dreams have taken the place of the first.
April 13, 1988 Article
The sight of those cheerful yet lonely fires burned long in the memory of those who lived in Carroll Township (Carroll County) in those times. Some of them, too, caught the fever brought by the pilgrims. West they went also. Some to live, to die, to prosper or not along the way and beyond. Some to die or disappear. Some to return. It was a time of moving about, a time of change even along the quiet banks of Straddle Creek as Carroll Creek was then yet called. Thirteen years had gone by since settlement had occured by and about the fortres walls which was he creek's north bank, rock so imposing that a surveyor said of them, "the bluff is too steep and rugged to get a distance with any degree of accuracy."
Another mineral rush had first drawn them here, twenty years before gold was the bonanza sought. It was lead. The ground most dug over at first was in section 3 of Carroll Township, both in the bottoms and up ont he ridge in the northwest quarter of the southwest quarter, history says, which looks to be why the Quarry/Palisades Road trespasses there sharply down the incline with the creek sweeping around the bend to the east of it. Here, it's said, was the Still House Forty, an infamous plot of ground much dug either for the lead or the fact that the diggings were in proximity to a still located there. Here the lead was in crevice, not in caves, as at Galena. The miners weres topped by water flooding in and although some strikes paid fair wages, no great stakes were found. There and just over the townshipline into Woodland, men scratched and searched for mineral. In the meantime they must live some other way and look to a future which may not have included lead.
Besides farming, early settlers looked for waterpower to supply them force for mills to saw and grind. In 1837-38, a little after the first residents came, the first of several mills were built in Carroll Township that on on the section line between one and two. There'd been a little discord over the claim but dispute seemed to accompany a particular pair of speculators. Once straightened out progress moved forward, it slowly. We will not here continue the history of that mill, nor that of the one farther down the winding creek near the next section line. Those are for another time. With your help and suggestion, a mill history of Carroll County might be compiled. Let's here from you.
The valley, to point out, had been important long before Gold Rush days for its waterpower, and for what other of those forces of nature which pull people to such secluded glades. Paths from times of antiquity had met here and were deeply worn into the hills leading to this place. Several Indian trails came together, splaying outward in many directions to follow ridges and rivers. Perhaps it was that the limestone walls relented a bit, or the barrier was taken to make a path, but a road finally indented itself into the hillside there in the far corner of section four.
Or was it some tellurian magnetism which dew ancient man to the place? Mounds of their civilization's remains and their own were found nearby and examined in the early history of white man's settlement here. The place was once populace told by what they left after their going. Economic of their resources, moderate with their material goods, one wonders how many centuries preceeded that going for the thousands of artifacts they left in the near area throughout. White man's condescension wraps him in his own world of security in thinking that his is the only important civilization though so recent. The paths and the fords were easily recognized when white man first passed through here. He immediately began their use and soon named the roads which evolved.
When he came, all that was left of that earlier time were a couple of tepees on the hill, their tattered remnants blowing forlornly in the wind, hardly indication of what had been. Most dramatic was a tall tree, barren of branches, about twelve feet high with a hole mortised near the top for a long limb worked through it which made it look for all the world, our world, like a huge cross and seen for miles distant. What it was for no one knew. Perhaps it was an appropriate, if unconscious symbol of the death of a great past about which we'd know only a whisper.
Surely it was the water which drew people here, the natural beauty of it was secondary in those practical times. Between the confluence of Straddle Creek or Carroll, if you will, with Plum River and Mt. Carroll City there was said to have been six mills. We find only five at any one time but that's unimportant. Their history and names often overlapped and are confusing to sort.
Here we choose one mill to describe, the Jacobs, built near where those timeworn trails flared out to accomodate travelers or pilgrims, mineral seekers, settlers. Surely, the many numbers of the Jacobs' in Whiteside and Carroll were related. So, too, might have been their abilities and interests.
Benjamin Jacobs, shown in Carroll County's census in 1840 may well have been following a family tradition or experimenting with what sort of mill there'd be here where the old trails all met. In 1847 he sold the equipment of a carding mill to David Howard. Carding mills which cleaned and combed the fleece of sheep were an exciting innovation. They eliminated by machine, dirt and burr from the wool which was a time consuming, tedious task for the housewife already hardpressed to keep up with household chores. How she must have welcomed this new enterprise to the neighborhood. But obviously it wasn't meant to be. The carding mill equipment was sold.
The Carroll County history says that only one carding mill existed here and that for only a short time in Salem Township. With this we will not argue, but just pass on the information that Benjamin Jacobs had the furnishing for one which he sold in 1847; "one double carding machine (double: a modern machine at that time), a picker, fixtures and all appertenances."
Either he was no longer in business or had chosen not to enter into it. Lack of local fleece also may have prevented such a business to develop enough to be profitable. Soon after this, Jacobs sold some accumulated land, borrowed on it or whatever dealings were necessary. Unless the transactions are simple and self evident, PDQ Me does not figure them out. In 1849 there was negotiation for $2,000 which took place for the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section four, Carroll Township. This would be quite a sum for forty acres unless there was a mill, perhaps, its appertenances or other business of some sort, on the property. Does that seem reasonable? The money amount was considerable.
Villages grew up around mills and did so with little fanfare or pretension. The mutual aid to one another gave reason enough for being together. We know that by 1851 a village, Jacobsville, had grown here where the trails met. One source says it was a "lively little village with a good waterpower and quite a number of houses of homehewed lumber." The description also remarks that there was a blacksmith shop, saw and grist mills, a cooper shop for making the flour barrels, ets. and a weaving ship. With the decline of the village, the weaver, Jacob Wolfley, left for Lanark, to their gain, where he and his family made serviceable and colorful woven rugs for a couple more generations.
There was a store and a post office too, as the place was known officially, to distinguish it from "Jacobstown" near Morrison. The post office was shortlived, however. Solomon Myers was the postmaster from January 30, 1852 to May 20th while Benjamin Jacobs took over to carry on only until August 24, 1852. Two postmasters in eight months.
Although the Lewistown Trail is said to have passed here, the steep hills on either side of the deep vally may have caused the wagons and stages to take a bold run at the opposite incline. The stops here may have been few as a result. The mail business obviously was not heavy. It was a time "between eras" - the lead rush and its traffic through had all but ceased. The route had shifted elsewhere from the old Lewistown Trail. It was just before the railroads. Timing is everything in the success of an enterprise. The mails may have been light but perhaps the mill business was thriving..
April 20, 1988 Article
A Michael Markley who came to Carroll County in 1850 from Fulton county is said to have "run Jacob's sawmill for five years." We don't know by this if the sawmill was Jacob's and Markley and Nurse if Markley was merely identifying the general area by Jacob's name. Sometimes, too, grist and saw mills were run as one concern but there is no evidence in this case that this was so.
Nurse's Mill was set in a triangle at the confluence, tapping Straddle Creek's power with a head race guiding water from it and past the mill, the tail race emptying into Cedar to add greatly to the mill dam for Jacob's grist mill downstream.
Information from those years is about as sparse as it can be, unfortunately. The earliest decades of settlement are almost better recorded. They were the times of the "firsts" and noted. The years after, too, we know more about due to their being newspapers extant. But in the late 1840's and early 50's pioneers were too busy, perhaps, to do a lot of journal keeping and its history is lost. It was a time of steady growth and development.
Development included talk of railroads. Talk, rumor, fact, fiction. Thousands of dollars were spent in luring the railroads to Carroll County. Thousands of dollars were spent when merchants mortgaged and farmers financed, railroad companies in the mid 1850's to promote them coming through to the Mississippi. Hopes and dreams ran gigh for the railroad to bring trade and traffic right past our doorstep. Hopes and dreams were about as far as the first couple of attempts got. About as far as the first real scheme towards rails cross county got is still visible from the doorstep of June and Kenny Kniss in Freedom Township (Section 26).
From the Georgetown Road one can shde their eyes and look south to see in the middle of the near field what looks to be a hill rising there. It rises, however in a draw where a spring bubbles - mid stony outcrop. At the base of this mound you realize that it is much higher and steeper up close than it appears from the ridge. It rises so abruptly, too, that it does not seem a natural formation. This is, as far as can be ascertained, the western most railroad embankment of the 1850's rail scheme to build the Racine and Mississippi across Carroll County. Several years of litigation followed bankruptcy of the idea and few obtained a return for their initial investment.
At this time, however, hope and dreams were what made hamlet into town, town into city, that, and the interconnection of rails. Georgetown, Stovertown and Jacobsville were parts of that dream, never exactly broken because they were but hopes not promises, but never exactly fulfilled because the dream as there.
One may wonder if the survey in 1854 for the "Flats of Straddle Creek" was one such dream. In the south half of the northwest quarter of Section Three, Carroll Township, was a survey by Jonathon Cummings for property from the ridge of the wall north of the river ot the "flats" south. With the talk of railroads so prevalent then "Cummingsville" may have been at the back of it although it is as likely it was to straighten out some property line question.
The "flats" and other of the places mentioned here can be located south of Straddle (Carroll) Creek and along Palisades Road where teh "bluff too steep and rugged to get a distance with any degree of accuracy" forms a wall. By turning north at the large stone quarry on Rt. 64 about two miles west of Mt. Carroll, the quarry which, by the way, is listed on the earliest county maps, continue over the hill which is the souther ridge of this narrow canyon. Palisades Road from Mt. Carroll runs into this about a mile north of the highway and is the identification of the road as it turns west also. From here on drive slowly because you can see, especially if the leaves are new or non-existent, where Carroll/Straddle Creek comes sparkling from the east, sweeping around to flow along the base of the cliffs. This long curve of road from the hillside serves as an introduction to one of the prettiest sights in Carroll County - in any season. In winter each tree and rock is well definied against the snowy backdrop. Ice jams add drama to the quiet murmur of the water rippling over the rocky bed. All kinds of trees and plants add to the mixture in summer to make a medley of greens.
Near the bridge was once Chalfant's Mill, Leonard's Mill and later Fulrath's Mill. Pause a spell to listen to the music of te ater. Turn left to the west where you'll enter Straddle Creek flats and imagine the campfires of the Gold Rush Days here in the evenings or the ragged, rough characters who frequented the place where the Still House Forty drew customers or prospectors. As late as 1887 lead mining was resumed around here. Newspapers say that year, "20,000 lbs. of lead was taken in ten days in the "Straddle Creek diggings' and marketed at Savanna." About a mile and a half west along the winding road was the place of "Nurse's Sawmill" about where Cedar Creek enters Carroll. It sawed and sectioned logs into lumber for the lower valley, possibly after the Christian mill had ceased to be to the east.
The creeks seem placid enough now, but imagine how the water roared in storm and thaw down the valley before tiling tamed drainage and erosion, the reason for its being dotted with mills.
Another half mile or so and you'll reach the Jacobstown Road. On the south side of the junction is an abandoned house, all that marks old Jacobsville, seven acres platted in May of 1855 - 133 years ago just about now. The following spring Benjamin and Mariah Jacobs, who each gave a name to one of Jacobsville's streets, mortgaged the place to the Racine and Mississippi Railroad as other in a long list of investors to attempt at progress and prosperity. All except, that is, Lot 4 in Block 1 and Lot 6 in Blcok 4, which we may see by the plat were prime sites for business or home (see April 13, 1988 Article). Eight acres in the southwest quarter of Section 33 in Woodland Township also were part of that mortgage, the ridge to the north of the townsite. If you scan a Carroll County map you will note the Georgetown Road runs by fits and starts here from that place of the "last embankment" in Freedom Township and those few east of it still visible. It lookd good in 1856 when Jacobsville and the flats up the valley would be on the route of the railroad to the Mississippi. Jacobsville would perhaps climb the ridge and bluff or line them as Savanna was to do in its rugged location. Having been the crossroads for a trail in lead mining days seemed again logical for a railroad twenty years later as an historical marker at Center Hill says that the Lewistown Trail once ran through the village of Jacobstown. The railroad,however, went south of it. Six years later than when it was platted. How long the mills and other business here continued on is not accurately known. If records are read correctly, that parcel of ground was sold for a very small sum by 1858 which would indicate that the mill property was not then on it but please don't quote us. That information may yet surface. How long residents clustered htere is also not known. Wolfley, the weaver, left Lanark, to their gain, by the early 1870's where, undoubtedly, the business climate was more prosperous.
No records seem available either to tells u more about the fate of the Jacob's families either. Once so numerous in this neighborhood and in Whiteside, few are shown in cemetery records.
In 1854 Benjamin and Mariah Jacobs had requested a survey be made to establish a graveyard high on the ridge north of the blossoming village "for the publis use with the exception of a perch square around the grave of their child buried within the bounds of the survey which Benjamin Jacobs reserves for self, heirs and assigns at the northeast corner of the west half of the northwest quarter, Section Four." This cemetery once served its neighborhood but time has not been kind. Fallen and broken, few stones remain to tell the history of the place. In fact what history there is from it came from a reading taken in 1940 and two other previous records, dates unknown. Those are not complete but in the list is one poignant entry which may have served as the incentive for plotting the cemetery in the first place; "Jacob Jacobs, aged six years, buried near the gate at the corner of their home. Died of smallpox. No cemetery then and wild animals roamed close. Parents, Benjamin and Mariah Jacobs." The Jacobs, like so many of their kind had come to a near primitive wilderness, braved the seasons, disease, the elemental conditions to bring civilizing influences to it. In their way they contributed to the chain of historic progresson.
When few gravemarkers ramained some perceptive folks wishing to recall their neighborhood heritage erected one large monument in a cement rectangle in which the remaining stones were placed. This arrangement in dignified gray granite announces, "Jacobstown Cemetery," A short stroll down a grassy wagon road from a stretch of the former Georgetown Road is the path to quiet contemplation of what was or is. Young locust trees ring the steep mound on which it rests. Juncoes and cardinals bring a sharp and bright exclamation to the hushed surroundings high above the creek's flats and the former site of the "flouring mill" of Benjamin Jacobs and the sawmill, too.
In the winter or its immediate seasons when trees and leaves allow a view of this glen where once so much industry and enthusiasm for its prospects once beckoned people to it, one can gain a perspective of part of the valley. Though never wishing to live in the past, resolve does weaken a bit here to which just a glimpse of how it might have looked from here as wagons and carts rumbled along to the mills or to hear the whine and scream of saw biting wood. Di the stage driver's whip echo down the long valley as he urged the four-in-hand up the opposite hill? Of course. We know and hear it yet if we let it.
The campfires of the Gold Rush Days of 49 still gleam in the twilight - or are they summer's fireflies - one for every soul who passed this way in their many quests?
The old Indian trails led here along the confluence of Cedar with Carroll and on to tmeet just a meander away northwest with the Plum. Tattered wigwam told that story yet in 1836. Excavations in the 1850's and again shortly after 1900 showed a longtime commitment to the area by previous civilization. Urges and forces rarely explored or even credited for existing do draw us in some subconscious way, by some telluric attraction even though science and sophistication tell us otherwise to places used before like this. We can "know" some things by feeling them. One feels it here where the creeks follow along the ancient limestone walls and where many burial mounds once attested to numbers which had gone before. One feels it where roads have converged from time immemorial for reasons lost in that time; where humankind found root and solace. We needn't have scientific fact for proof. We needn't even desecrate the past for confirmation. Some insinuation whipsers, some instinctive notion native to our core makes us ask the question. "Is the Jacobstown Cemetery made on one of the Indian mounds which once so prevalently lined the creeks and rivers here, built by later natural intuition?
From the Goodly Heritage - Excerpts taken from "Topography, Geology, Mills" ... (Page 21)
To the east of the Camp creek watershed is Zion ridge and Zion school with an elevation of 905 feet, second highest point in the county. The ridge extending into Jo Daviess county parallels Route 78 along Pleasant Valley and the middle fork of Plum river which branches at the early grist milltown of Polsgrove. The east fork continues east for above five miles before turning north into Stephenson county near Loran. Three "runs," Crane, Lyn and Cherry Grove branch from its east side and drain most of Cherry Grove township. Near the early community of Keltner on Dislon road was the former Bolinger sawmill. A few miles below Polsgrove was West Point, site of Emmerts sawmill from which a ridge and Indian trail extended to the eastern edge of the county. Near Woodland town hall, elevation 873 feet, the Straddle creek watershed intersects a northwesterly ridge which runs from Point Rock Park in Mt. Carroll to Polsgrove and continues east where it is known as Georgetown ridge in Freedom and Cherry Grove townships. A half mile or so north of the intersection of Locust and Grange roads on this ridge the elevation is 1042 feet, highest in the county. Below West Point and above the mouth of Camp creek is the mouth of Straddle creek upon which are the sites of six saw and grist mills. At Jacobstown, a few miles above the creek's mouth was Jacob's mill on the west and Nourse's mill on the east with the former's mill pond in between. About a mile further east was Fulrath's gristmill, earlier known as Chalfonts. Its milldam was three quarters a mile further up the creek with a long flume or race carrying the water across interning tributaries to the mill. Its millstones are said to have been quarried from native limestone thereby to add "some grit to the ~ Johnny-cake. " Between Jacobstown and Fulrath's mill Cedar Creek comes from the south through the former Glengarry golf course and the existing Glengarry stables. It crosses Routes 52 and 64 at the foot of Tucky or Center Hill; a half-mile further east in what was known as Preston Prairie was Cumming's mill which turns out to have been a cider mill, and just to the east of Preston road adjoining the state routes on the south is still to be seen Preston's pond, a dammed-up spring in which this earliest pioneer in the township raised bass and bluegills. Back along Straddle Creek, about three quarters of a mile west of Mt. Carroll as the crow flies was the Christian sawmill later operated by Hitt and Swingley. It was in this portion of the canyon-like valley, according to legend, that the Indians used to drive herds of buffalo trapped by the perpendicular bluffs and later to be slaughtered for meat. The Valley of this creek just north of Mt. Carroll's business district is narrow and deep, especially where it is crossed by the Route 78 bridge which replaced an earlier suspension and later an iron bridge. At the foot of this gorge some three blocks farther west, a dam was built in 1842 to make a beautiful waterfall. Water flowed across Market street in an open sluiceway to operate a 20-foot waterwheel in the mill. The dam burst many times but finally about 1913 the mill was shut down and later demolished. Two miles north and west of Lanark was the J. V. Valentine grist mill, the dam being about a quarter of a mile east of Stone Bridge road. The overflow from the spillway ran under a picturesque arched stone bridge and the waters in the tailrace, after flowing through the mill passed under the big new bridge over the creek. The relocated road now runs east of the abandoned bridge, the site of a favorite swimming and fishing hole for generations of Lanark youngsters. Recent investigations of the origin of the canyon-like valley of Straddle creek commonly known as the Waukarusa (Indian name for crooked river) brought to light a most interesting geological history. The evidence is revealed in the layers of glacial till exposed in a large gravel pit south of the creek and two miles east of Route 78. Prior to the Winnebago glacier which passed immediately east of the driftless or unglaciated area, the valley now drained by Straddle creek to the east of Mt. Carroll and north and east of Lanark, had formerly been drained by J ohnsons creek in a valley which crossed the present Cyclone Ridge road a short distance east of its intersection with Route 88. The glacier completely filled the valley at this point with glacial till, thus-in geological terms-"beheading" Johnsons creek similar to the formation of Apple River Canyon at the state park in Jo Daviess county.* There the former natural drainage outlet was "beheaded" causing the canyon to be cut by waters from the melting glacier into the Apple river watershed. The Winnebago glacier then, in melting and retreating impounded a deep horseshoe shaped lake with beaches still to be seen in upper levels of the surrounding valley. This lake spilled over the limestone ridges to the north and west cutting the gorges at the Wilderberg Place, north and east of Mt. Carroll and between Point Rock Park and Fulrath's mill. This was aided, no doubt, by rifts and cracks in the limestone formations by reason of pressure from what is known as the Savanna anticline which runs from east to west across the county uplifting these rock formations from below. Like the Ridge road from Savanna northward, and the Georgetown Ridge from West Point eastward, a pronounced ridge extends from Weidman Hill east of Old Mill Park to Tucky Hill, some five miles further east. The highest point is 873 feet near Center Hill school. Continuing as a somewhat lower ridge easterly along Cyclone Ridge and south and east of Lanark, it was followed by the pioneer trails between Savanna and Elkhorn Grove, and is presently followed between Savanna and just west of Mt. Carroll by Routes 52 and 64 with views for miles to the north and south. A southeasterly ridge branches off the west end of this east-west ridge along the east side of the widening Mississippi river floodplain below Savanna, excepting that the road in this instance runs now Old Mill Park. Log rafts were towed by steamboat to the saw mill at one time and the "falls" actually were a rapids over which the water fell nine feet. But the backwater from Fulton Lock and Dam has virtually inundated the rapids. The Indian name for this stream was Pecatolikee as shown on the government survey, and early records at Galena, the former county seat, show references to Plum River Falls and Ferry at this location.** Because the stream was too deep and wide to ford or bridge below this location, all traffic from the south and east crossed at the ford above the falls or at the ferry. Luther H. and his brother John L. Bowen built a sawmill at the above location on the Plum River in 1835. The next year and for many years thereafter the Bowens worked together, Luther operating the mill and John the ferry nearby - One derogatory comment recently heard was - that when the early pioneers flooded the ford above the falls with their milldam, it thereby ensured business for the ferry below and-entirely incorrectly - that this may have been one of the reasons for calling this a "sucker" trail. In 1839, Porter Sargeant built a powder mill nearby which exploded in 1845, killing one workman, injuring three others, and blowing up two of the buildings. It was promptly rebuilt and resumed operations. After it discontinued operations several fishermen went into the vacant mill and when one of them attempted to light a pipe, another explosion took place, killing one, severely injuring another, and badly burning a third. In the early days a ferry also carried passengers and wagons near the mouth of the Plum river connecting with a road which ran southeasterly to the end of the sand ridge in Section 14. Also, county records show that a ferry returned to the mill-site and falls at a later time when the bridge washed out.
Some Carroll County References:
Some Whiteside County References:
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The accompanying drawing is a survey done in the early 1850's and shows that, and the site of it in regard to Jacob's "flouring" mill. Reference to the sawmill calls it the "Nurse Mill," named, perhaps for residents of Carroll Township as listed in the 1850 census, Wilson and Mary Nurse. No other, or rather, no actual verification of the owners is given. No reference in anything else mentions anyone by the name of Nurse although there are Nourses's listed in early accounts. If the two names were interchangeable used by the census takers who were, shall we say, pretty casual in their spelling in the "olden days," often the case, we can't say for certain but its likely.