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Reflections: We owe Kendall County’s growth and prosperity to the dynamic 1830s · Kendall County News - Shaw Local

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  Reflections. We owe Kendall County's growth and prosperity to the dynamic eighteen
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  thirties. Written by Roger Matheal for Shaw Local News Network. This article
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  is being read by an automated voice, brought to you by Everlit.
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  Given all this past summer's patriotic hubbub, it might be worthwhile to
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  take a look at how many of the things we take for
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  granted today got their start. Settlement in Kendall County really didn't begin
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  to boom until 1833, the year of the early spring. That years
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  the prairies were dry and wagons able to travel by the end
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  of February. By May that year, a wave of settlers was arriving
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  along the banks of the Fox River in what not too many
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  years later would become Kendall County. Kendall's first settler was William Beresford,
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  who brought his family up the Fox River from Ottawa in eighteen
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  twenty-six, staking his claim at that the Reverend E. W. Hicks, Kendall's
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  first historian, said was the southernmost point of Holderman's Grove. That would
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  have put it in The center of the north half of Section
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  31 of modern Big Grove Township. Settlers trickled in after that until
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  the war prompted by a Sock Warriors tribal band's return to Illinois
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  in the spring of 1832 set off the brief Black Hawk War.
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  The next year, the floodgates opened. Earl Adams, Ebenezer Morgan, John Schneider,
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  and the extended Pierce family all came that year. Adams claimed what
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  became Courthouse Hill in today's Yorkville, while the Pierce family settled in
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  and around Oswego Covered Wagons
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  were only one means of travel from the east, however. John and
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  William Wormley, Hicks reported, were said to have traveled on foot from
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  New York with nothing but their rifles and a change of clothes,
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  averaging thirty six miles a day on their way to Oswego Township
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  in 1833. Wagons were a favored means of transportation, though, because so
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  much could be carried in the including the men's all important ploughs
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  and the women's household goods, many of which were just as vital
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  to survival. Spinning wheels and the accessories to turn flax and wool
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  into thread were life or death items, as were the metal parts
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  for looms to turn the thread into cloth. Upon arriving on the
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  Kendall County Prairie, the large sturdy looms were constructed from native hardwood
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  using the metal parts from the east. A chest of quilts and
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  the family rocker were often brought along, and candle moulds and seeds
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  for the first year's crop were well guarded items. Milk cows were
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  usually brought along as well, with the cow providing milk and cream
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  on the way west. Butter was made on the trail by putting
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  cream in a covered bucket hung from the rear wagon axle. The
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  jouncing wagons soon churned the cream into fresh butter. They first settlers
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  in Kendall County S mostly made their claims south of The
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  Indian boundary line that cuts through the county's southern townships. The land
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  south of the boundary line had been ceded to the government by
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  the resident tribes, was surveyed, and so was available for sale. Not
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  so the land north of the boundary line. The settlers there were
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  squatters who did not own the land on which they settled. Not
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  until eighteen forty two did the US government finally offer the land
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  for sale. The first settlers built log cabins, but pioneer mill rights
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  quickly followed, and soon had saw mills operating to supply saw and
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  lumber. If the settlers arrived in the spring, a crop was planted
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  immediately or as soon as a braking plough could be located and
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  rented. Special braking plows were needed to turn the prairie sod for
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  the first time. The native prairie grasses had produced such a tangled
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  and thick mat of vegetation that special tools were needed for that
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  task. Usually only one man in a community owned a breaking plough
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  such as Peter Spacey, a French Canadian who lived south of Oswego
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  in Spacey Grove. Several yoke of oxen were harnessed to them plough,
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  which only cut a furrow three to four inches deep. A British
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  observer reported in the eighteen forties that the prairie plough is very
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  seldom proportioned to the strain it has to bear, and for the
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  most part makes wretched work. I have seen five yoke of oxen
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  in one of the crazy creaking things, which not infrequently are converted
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  by one smash into a bundle of sticks. Fortunately for the pioneers,
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  prairie grasses were so delicate that almost any disruption of them caused
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  them to die. The first year seed was placed under the strip
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  of prairie turf, turned over by the breaking plough, and a crop
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  of sorts was grown. Sod corn, however, was not very productive. Illinois
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  Prairie was said to be so rich that in the 1840s a
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  settler could buy eighty acres of land, fence it in, build a
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  house land other buildings, and pay off all debts within only two
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  years. Early settlers usually had little livestock. Cows and pigs were allowed
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  to roam in the groves of hardwoods that dotted the Fox Valley's
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  prairies. Water came either from streams or from nearby springs, which were
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  favored because they had pure water. Oswego, like other settlements in what
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  became Kendall County, boasted a number of springs, many of which are
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  still running to this day. One of the village's most important springs
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  was located on land homesteaded by Oswego's first settler, William Wilson, a
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  member of the extended Pierce family, at the intersection of Routes 34
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  and 25. The water from this spring served subsequent pioneers and was
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  bottled and sold until the nineteen twenties. Natural food abounded in the
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  Kendall County area, with large groves of hickory and black walnut trees
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  supplying nuts. Prairies covered with wild strawberries provided a welcome change of
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  diet in spring, and of course, fish from the Fox River and
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  the county's many creeks and game from the prairie and groves was
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  abundant. However, eighteen thirties Illinois was still the frontier, and life was
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  hard. Disease was prevalent, and dangers like prairie fires were frequent. Fortunately,
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  those settlers were a hardy, focused lot who stuck it out and
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  encouraged growth. Their initial efforts at creating prairie farms and and laying
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  out towns most Kendall County towns date to the dynamic settlement years
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  of the eighteen thirties created the Kendall County that we live in
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  and enjoy today something to think about as we wind up celebrating
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  the nation's two hundred fiftieth birthday. Interested in more local history? Visit