HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
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and full of rude kindness; but they were rough and resentful, reckless and improvident. They were hunters and trappers, loved the abandon and freedom from restraint of isolated life, and had no desire for neighbors or the improvements of civilization. Whence and when they came was nobody's business, and when or where they went, few knew or cared, and they were soon forgotten. Still they were of great service to the early permanent settlers, many of whom were quite unfamiliar with the needs and ways of pioneer life. It was near their cabins the home-seekers camped, and left their families while searching for desirable locations; and of them they learned of the pleasant places where there was water and wood, and open sheltered land to cultivate. As the squatters made no improvements for themselves, they had time, and willingly helped the new-comers; and very handy help they were, for they knew how to adjust life to the primitive surroundings. But they did not wish the settler to locate too near, and they did not care to work many days. They knew how to locate a cabin; how to notch the logs so as to fit, and bind at the corners; how to split shakes and puncheons, and how to lay the crooked rail fence upon a straight line. They taught very many lessons highly useful to men and women, making homes amid surroundings and conditions wholly new and strange. In sickness, too, they were exceedingly helpful. They lived principally by hunting, trapping and fishing; and when the sound of a neighbor's axe was too frequently heard, or the light too often seen in a neighbor's cabin, they deemed the settlement too close, and soon sold their claim, or traded it to "some new-comer, for enough of his outfit to transport them to another location on the western border; and so they kept advancing continually to the front. Two of them happened to locate their temporary homes in this county where beautiful cities have since been built, and their names are still remembered. Daniel S. Haight's cabin was beside the big spring on the west bank of the river at Geneva; while Christopher Payne's was located on the east bank of the river, near the center of the city of Batavia. It is known that these people came in 1833 along the old army trail, and quite a number of similar squatters built their cabins in the woods, in various parts of the county about the same time.
The next year settlers began to arrive, seeking permanent farm homes, "mill privileges" and town-sites, and the real occupation and development of the country began. The stormy years of President Jackson's tumultuous administrations, with their disastrous financial convulsions and reverses, had brought ruinous commercial losses to many enterprising men throughout all the populous sections of the country. The strong, self-reliant ones, who, through these losses, had become comparatively impoverished, naturally sought new and broader fields of activity in that promising western land whose fame had been told by the officers and soldiers who had traversed it, and thus began a tide of immigration replete with intellectual and moral force. Northern Illinois experienced the full momentum of these influences, and such qualities among its emigrants were potent factors in shaping the future development of Kane County. Very many of its first permanent citizens, were accustomed to the intelligent discharge of both personal and public responsible duties. They had met unavoidable financial reverses bravely and honorably, and were prepared to meet resourcefully, the demands of any new exigency. They were experienced and industrious, and many, both men and women, were highly educated and refined. Kane County was exceedingly fortunate in the intellectual, moral and religious character of its early settlers.
CHAPTER VI.
EARLY HOME-SEEKERS.
HARDSHIPS OF EARLY IMMIGRATION METHODS OF
TRANSPORTATION LOCATING A CLAIM AND
BUILDING THE FIRST CABIN CONSTRUCTION OF
STOCK SHELTERS HARVESTING THE FIRST
CFIOP-HORRORS OF A PRAIRIE FIRE PROCURING
THE WINTER'S SUPPLY OF FLOUR AND MEAL- TRIP TO THE OTTAWA GRIST-MILL-EXPERIENCE
OF A PIONEEB WOMAN THE BUILDING OF A VIRGINIA WORM FENCE.
It is, at best, a long wagon-road from the States bordering upon the far Atlantic to Illinois. But in the days when Western New York
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