640
HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
at daybreak, they were again on their way. Two nights they had been without food, and this was also the second day of fasting. Each day they had forded creeks and sloughs, and now they were benumbed and soaked with the cold rain of the previous night. Toward noon they forded the marshy stream called the Nipper-sink, near the present village of McHenry, and with difficulty waded through its muddy bottom. In after years they said it was indeed "nip-or-sink" with them. Soon after, when very nearly exhausted, they heard the welcome sound of an axe and discovered a man splitting rails. He proved to be in the employ of Samuel Gillian, who had just located a claim and built a cabin some five or six miles above the present thriving village of Algonquin. Had they not crossed the river with the Indian, and had they endeavored to make their way down its east bank, they would almost inevitably have miserably perished in the interminable swamps above and around Fox and Grass Lakes. Who can fathom the providential impulse that induced them to cross to the west bank of the stream?
The half-famished and worn-out men were at once conducted to Mr. Gillian's cabin, where, of course, they received a hospitable welcome, and such succor as their pitiable condition required. Mr. Gillian told them of the cabin of Wm. Welch, some twenty-five miles down the river on the east side, and near Scott's old army trail, and furnished them with a needful supply of food for their trip to Welch's. They now felt assured of their way, and that, as they neared the army trail, they were approaching the desired line between Galena and Chicago; and so they scanned the country, and the banks and current of the stream with more deliberate care. The general appearance of the whole valley had, in all respects, fully equalled their most sanguine expectations, and the lovely landscape, where the city of Elgin now stands, attracted their admiring attention. It seemed to them a vast park rather than an uncultivated wilderness. The steep, though not precipitous, hills on the west bank of the river were covered with great white and black oak trees, and patches of smaller trees, and hazel and berry bushes grew in the more open places. The whole imposing hillside and narrow level bank to the river's verge was green with the grassy verdure of early spring. For a half mile or more in width on the east side, over the-gentler hills and valley slopes, were scattered the low topped, wide-spreading burr oak trees, with no undergrowth and carpeted beneath like a grassy lawn. The view was open and unobstructed to the timber lands that are now the beautiful city park. It reminded them of the great old orchards in New York. The firm, gravelly bed of the stream guaranteed a solid foundation for a dam, and the rapid flow of the river indicated the fall of water necessary to insure the requisite power for mills. There was also a long, narrow slough paralleling the river for a half mile or more, near to its east bank, that with little expense could be converted into a raceway for distributing the power acquired by a dam.
Here they decided to locate their farms, and James T. Gifford's prospective mill and village. James T. stepped off and marked out a claim to the land which he subsequently platted, and Hezekiah located a larger claim for a farm adjoining and south of his brother's. They found Mr. Welch's cabin some five miles south, on the bank of Brewster Creek, and near the army trail, which was the path they took back to Chicago. In Chicago they met a Mr. Joseph Kimball who was looking for a mill-site, and they persuaded him to investigate the one at their location, which he soon after did, in company with his son Samuel J. Joseph Kimball died while on his way back to New York for his family, but Samuel J. made a claim, and another son, Mr. William C. Kimball, came also and joined Mr. Gifford in constructing the dam, and equally shares with Mr. Gifford in the honor of first developing the beautiful city of Elgin. Mr. Kimball's saw-mill and Mr. Gifford's grist-mill were put in operation in 1837.
In the meantime dams and mills had been or were being constructed at North Aurora, Mill Creek, Batavia, Geneva, St. Charles, Dundee and Carpentersville. These were based upon individual enterprise and capital, yet were so essential to the interest and convenience of every individual settler that all possible help was extended by each. The McCarty's did their first sawing in June, 1835, and their first grinding in February, 1837. Previous to that time the nearest mills were near Naperville and at Ottawa. It is said that one settler drove his ox-team to some point on the Wabash River for flour.
