HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
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on May 8, 1834. Friend Marks and family, William Arnold, John M. and Alexander Laughlin; Walter Wilson, with his sons, John C. and Thomas, and his son-in-law, Thomas Barlan; Mrs. Moses Young, with her sons Samuel, Stephen, Joel and Daniel C., and her daughter Jerusha; Robert Moody, J. T. Wheeler, John Kittridge (after whom Dr. Kittridge Wheeler, D. D., the distinguished Baptist divine, is named), Nathan Perry, William Welch (who settled on the army trail beside Brewster Creek, on what became Section 1), and his son-in-law, Tucker; William Wilson, Melvin Marsh and James Davis all came this first year, and the most of them entered land along the east side of the timber. It is said that a settler named Crandall built a cabin on the west side near Captain P. H. Bowman's residence in 1834. Three of the most active and enterprising men who have contributed to the progress of the town and county-Solomon Dunham, Mark W. Fletcher and Calvin Ward-came in 1835, as also did Charles B. Gray, Ephraim and O. W. Perkins, Warren Tyler and his son Ira, Daniel Marvin, the first blacksmith, and many others. In this year the first school was opened in a part of Warren Tyler's double log house, standing where the "Western Enterprise" tavern was afterward built. It was taught by Miss Prudence Ward, who, in serene old age, still survives, crowned with the glory of a long life of Christian kindliness and exemplary usefulness. In 1835 Friend Marks performed the first road-work in the county by marking and improving a wagon track past his cabin (which was the first tavern) to Herrington's Ford. It is said that Garton and Howard drove their ox-teams to the Wabash settlement after supplies for these pioneers in the winter of 1834-5, which was unusually severe, the mercury during their trip ranging lower than twenty degrees below zero. J. M. Laughlin has stated that in June, 1835, he drove to Chicago with two yoke of oxen which had to swim in crossing the Des Plaines, and that the level land, from Oak Ridge in, was entirely covered with water.
In January, 1835, J. T. Wheeler and Jerusha Young were married at the home of Gideon Young, who then lived at, Naperville. J. M. Laughlin and Emily Garton were married at Elijah Garton's the same month; Dean Ferson and Prudence Ward were married in "Charles-town," as it was then called, on September 14, 1835. Death, as well as Love, was busy in the little colony. Stephen Young died May 8th, and it is said that, at his funeral, the Rev. Mr. Perry, a Congregational clergyman, preached the first sermon in the township. That fall Alzina Garton, twin sister of Mrs. Gray, died and was buried at Round Grove.
Crowds of settlers came in 1836. Among them were John Gloss, the Bairds and the Howards (Frances Christmas Baird was born on December 25 of that year), Zebina Brown, George Parker, J. H. Andrus, James T. Durant (whose brother, Bryant, arrived the next year), Nathan H. Dearborn, Dr. Whipple, Dr. Nathan Collins, Horace Bancroft (the first postmaster, who, four years later, refused to continue in office under General Harrison's Whig administration), Asa Hazeltine, Valentine Randall, Major W. G. and Smith Conklin, Amos N. Locke and Bela T. Hunt. During this year plans for utilizing the water power, and laying out and improving the village were matured, and in large measure carried forward. About this date excellent families were also settling in the northwest portion of the township, prominent among whom were Joel Harvey, James O. Burr, Mark Bisbee and Garritt Norton, each of whom established farms that have been models of thrift and productiveness.
Among all these early settlers will be noticed the names of families who have contributed very largely to the development and prosperity of the township and county. Famous- camp-meetings have been held, from the very earliest times, in the beautiful glades of the timbered lands bordering the eastern line of the township. St. Charles is one of the most prosperous dairy districts of the county, and its later development forms an important part of the progress of the county.
SUGAR GROVE TOWNSHIP. Township 38 North, Range 1 East, forms the middle of the tier of three southern towns of the county, and if people interested in the county will only remember that its southern line of townships constitute the Thirty-eighth North of the Base Line, and that its western tier are in the Sixth Range East of the Meridian Line, they will have no difficulty in accurately locating any tract of land of which they have the government description. Of the ten agricultural townships in the county, no one can
