HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
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this central location. The village plat was made in August, 1861, by Thaddeus Hoyt. Mr. F. L. Young, an old settler in Blackberry and Kaneville Townships, has for many years been a resident of this pleasant village. His neighbors have kept him busy with public affairs, as Highway Commissioner, Town Clerk, Assessor, School Director, Justice of the Peace, and the like, and the people of the county hold him in such confidence that for seven successive years, from 1879 to 1886, they elected him County Treasurer.
The first death in the township was that of John B. Moore, and the second that of Rev. Thomas Ravlin, on September 6, 1846, who was the first to be buried in the Kaneville cemetery.
PLATO TOWNSHIP.
Plato Township embraces Town 41, Range 7, and lies directly west of Elgin and east of Burlington. Because of the diverging correctional range line, run by the Government Surveyor between the townships numbered 41 and 42, all its north row of sections, as well as those of Elgin and Burlington, are fractional. Its west line is on the summit of the divide between the Rock and Fox Rivers, and its three or four small spring brooklets, or lowland drains, flow to the creeks emptying into the Fox. They furnished in the early days an abundance of good water for household and stock, conveniently distributed over a large portion of the township. Chicken Grove, near the southwest corner, was a body of fine heavy timber, principally oak of several varieties; but there was also considerable hickory, maple, black-walnut, and butternut. The old trail of the Indians and of General Scott's army, passed diagonally entirely across it. The general surface is quite level, yet sufficiently undulating to afford good drainage. The soil is excellent and small tracts of alternating woodland and prairie rendered it an inviting region to the pioneers. Prospecting, doubtless, along the army trail, and probably attracted by the neighboring grove, John Griggs and his son John Griggs, Jr., located claims along the southwest part of Chicken Grove, on land that became part of Sections 35 and 36 in this Township, in the summer of 1835. They were upright, energetic, intelligent men, and they and their descendants have ever been active and influential in local and county affairs. John Griggs was appointed by Governor Ford one of the judges of the first election in the county in 1836. He was the first Treasurer of the new county, and the first Justice of the Peace in his precinct. He kept the first tavern in the township and at it held the office of first postmaster. John S. Lee, another able and honorable man, just attaining his majority, came during the same year, and located an excellent claim adjoining Griggs but extending north toward the trail, October 23, 1838. He married Miss Nancy Perry, daughter of Mr. George Perry of Camp-ton-we must remember that there were no townships then, and no surveyed lines of roads or lands-and they were the first couple married in these settlements. They were each as handsome, in all manly and womanly endowment, as one need wish to see. Their son, Abijah A. Lee, born September 4, 1839, was the first white child born in the township. Mr. Lee's original claim of two quarter-sections, was added to, until he owned 940 acres of magnificent land. He was first elected Justice of the Peace in 1840, and served nine years. He was first elected Supervisor and served twelve years, and for forty years he served as a. School Director. His first son, Abijah A., is now an Assistant Supervisor from Elgin Township. Such records indicate something of the character of the first settlers of the township, and equally strong men have succeeded them. Their first grists were ground near Naperville, and a little later at Boardman's mill south of Batavia, and their tracks to and from the mill marked the route of the stage road from St. Charles toward Galena, beside which Grigg's tavern long stood. Dr. Latimer S. Tyler and Marcus and John Ranstead-the latter becoming in later years a member of the State Legislature-came in 1836 and settled on Section 12.
During the period between 1838 and 1840 came Dr. Daniel Pingree, William Hanson, Thomas Burnidge and others. At the general election in 1844 at the "Washington Precinct," which included Plato, we find the following voters registered: John Griggs, John Griggs, Jr., John S. Lee, Joseph S. Burdick, Lemuel Wolsey, Solomon Ellis, Morris Gutchis, Pardon Taber, George W. Spruce, Thomas Matte-son, James Ingalls, Charles Thrall, George P. Harvey, Edward Burnidge, Thomas Burnidge, Edward Burnidge, Jr., Stephen Archer, Michael
