Dayton embraces that part of T. 34, R. 4, which lies west of the Fox river,
about fourteen sections, and a strip one and a half sections wide, from the east
side of T. 34, 11.3, being about twenty-three sections of the whole. It formerly
included the whole of T. 34, R. 3, but the town of Wallace was taken from its
western side, reducing it to its present size. Indian creek passes across the
northeast corner of the town, and Crooked Leg creek and Buck creek across the
northern part, furnishing considerable timber to that section. These creeks,
with the rapid descent of the Fox river, give good drainage to the whole town.
Dayton had the first flouring mill in the county, and the first woolen mill run
by water, in the State. At one time, about 1834 and 1835, it was in advance of
Ottawa; it had a flouring mill, doing a heavy business, a saw mill, wagon shop,
tannery, and chair shop, and stores doing a large business.
The dam across the Fox river is maintained by the State. It was built to turn
water into the feeder for the canal, and the Messrs. Green, who were the owners
of the land, have what water they want, without any expense for dam or race.
The Fox river branch of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad passes through
Dayton. The flouring mill and woolen mill are both in use, and a paper mill has
recently gone into operation; and there is water power for many more.
The towns of Dayton and Rutland were settled simultaneously, and their early
settlement so connected that it is difficult to fully separate their history.
They are separated by Fox river, and between them lies the rapids of that
stream, furnishing an excellent water power and from where the feeder for the
Illinois and Michigan Canal is taken.
The first settler here was William Clark, said to be a South Carolinian, but
last from Fort Clark, now Peoria, in the spring of 1829. He built his cabin on
the N. E. i S. 24; sold his claim, in September, 1829, to John Green, and went
to Du Page County.
John Green, who purchased Clark's claim and improvement, in company with William
Green, Joseph G-rove and William Lambert, left Newark, Ohio, on the 27th day of
August, 1829, on a tour of exploration of the Northwest. They traveled on
horseback by the way of Fort Wayne, Kalamazoo, Michigan, and along the south
shore of Lake Michigan, to Chicago. They found but few settlers, and frequently
had to sleep on the ground with the sky for a covering.
In September, they reached Walker’s (now Holderman's) Grove, and the Fox river,
where Millington now is, following it down to the cabin of Clark. He showed them
the rapids of the Fox, and told them it was the best mill privilege in America.
As such a privilege was what Mr. Green was seeking, he purchased Clark's claim
and determined to locate here. They found a corps of engineers surveying the
canal feeder, and passed on to Ottawa, where they found one cabin near where the
Ottawa House now is, occupied by James Walker, and one cabin on the south
belonging to Dr. David Walker. They went on to Bailey's Point, where they found
Lewis Bailey and William Seeley. They explored the country as far south as
Vandalia, then the capital of the State, when he purchased eighty acres for his
mill site, at Dayton, and returned to Ohio, arriving on the 15th of October, and
immediately prepared to emigrate to Illinois.
NARRATIVE BY JESSE AND DAVID GREEN.
On the 2d of November, 1839, the following named persons left Newark, Licking
County, Ohio, for what is now La Salle County Illinois: John Green, David Grove,
Henry Brumback, and Reason Debolt, with their families, and the following named
young men: Samuel Grove, Joseph Grove, Jacob Kite, Alexander McKee, and Harvey
Shaver. Their outfit was one four-yoke ox team, three two-horse wagons, and one
carriage. Found the roads passable till we got into Indiana, where we lay by
three days for bad weather. The streams were high, but we were bound for the
West, and pressed forward. Found about forty teams weather-bound at Boxby's, on
the Whitewater, where we were told it would be impossible to proceed unless we
traveled on the top of wagons and teams already swamped. From there we cut our
way through heavy timber for sixty miles, averaging about ten miles per day. One
of the party, with a child in his arms, was thrown from the carriage, breaking
three of his ribs, and the carriage wheel passed over the child without injuring
it. The wounded man pursued the journey, never complaining; so readily did those
hardy pioneers adapt themselves to circumstances, and heroically face the
inevitable. The streams were so high we had to head them, or, as the saying is,
go around them.
We traveled five days by the compass, when we arrived at Parish's Grove,
Iroquois County, Illinois. From there we followed an Indian trail to Hubbard's
trading post, on the Iroquois river. Here we bought all the corn we could get —
about eight bushels — and a perogue, or canoe. Loading it with about thirty
hundred weight of our goods, we put Jacob Kite, Joseph Grove, and Samuel Grove,
on for a crew, with directions to work down the Iroquois to the Kankakee, and
through that to the Illinois, where they were to meet the teams. This was
necessary, as our teams were worn, feed scarce, and roads very bad, or, rather,
none at all. On the trip, Joseph Grove became so chilled that he contracted a
disease from which he never fully recovered.
Our teams crossed a prairie which had no bottom — at least, we did not find any.
The second day, found a stream too deep to cross; felled trees from either side
till they formed a temporary bridge, over which we conveyed our goods and
people, which was barely accomplished when the accumulated waters swept our
bridge away. The teams were made to swim, one horse barely escaping drowning.
One of the women became nervous, and could not be induced to walk the bridge.
John Green took her on his back, and made his way over on his hands and knees.
The exact position in which the lady rode is not recorded.
A heavy rain came on, and we encamped in a small grove, and were obliged to cut
up some of our boxes to make a Arc. That night we shall never forget; most of us
sat up all night. Mother laid down in the wagon, and tried to sleep, and was
frozen fast so she could not rise in the morning. It took us over three days to
reach the mouth of the Kankakee, a distance of thirty miles, while the perogue
had to go seventy miles by water. The crew had about given up in despair of
meeting us, when they fortunately heard a well-known voice calling to a favorite
horse, by which they were directed to our camp. We ferried most of our goods
over the Illinois on the perogue, when a friendly Indian showed us a ford where
we took our teams over without difficulty. Our corn being exhausted, our teams
had nothing to eat but browse, or dry prairie grass, and very little of that, as
the prairie had nearly all been burned over. In the afternoon of the 5th of
December, we came in sight of a grove of timber, and John Green, believing it to
be Hawley's (now Holderman's Grove, started on horseback to ascertain. His
expectations were realized, and he found Messrs. Hawley and Baresford butchering
a beef. He harnessed Baresford's horse, a large gray one, to a light wagon of
Baresford's, and taking a quarter of the beef, and filling the wagon with corn,
started for Nettle creek timber, where he supposed the party would stop.
The company had ordered a halt and prepared to encamp, but with the expectation
of going supperless to bed as their provisions were exhausted, when Mr. Green
drove up, to the great joy of the whole party, both man and beast. From the time
the corn gave out and the provisions were running short, one young man refused
to • eat, contending that as they were bound to starve, the provisions should be
reserved for the women and children.
The next day, being the 6th of December; 1829, about four o'clock p. M. we
reached our destination — except the three young men in charge of the perogue,
whom we expected would reach here before US; and when night came on we were all
cast down with fearful forebodings, as we thought they must have met with some
serious accident. But our anxiety was soon relieved. On the same day they had
made the perogue fast at the grand rapids of the Illinois, now Marseilles, and
crossing the prairie without any knowledge of the country, became benighted, but
seeing the light from our cabin, joined us about eight o'clock, and we had a
great time of rejoicing, the lost having been found. The self-sacrificing
brother joined us in a hearty meal, and his appetite never failed him afterward.
Our next object was to secure some provisions, as we had a large family and god
appetites. We bought twenty-four hogs of Markly, on the Desplaines; then went
south to Tazewell county, bought thirty bushels wheat at four shillings, eighty
bushels corn at two shillings, and took it to a horse mill where Washington now
is; spent several days in putting the mill in order, having to dress the boulder
mill stones, and furnish the motive power. Provisions were scarce before we had
produced a crop; we frequently lived on beef, potatoes and pound cake, so
called, being made of corn pounded in a mortar.
We went to work improving in the spring, and by July 4th we had 240 acres
fenced, and nearly all broken, and had built a saw mill, dam and race, and had a
run of boulder mill stones in one corner of the saw mill grinding wheat, the
first ground on Fox river. The stones were made from boulders or hard heads,
found here, by Christopher Payne, brother of the Dunkard preacher who was killed
by Indians on the prairie between Holderman's Grove and Marseilles, in 1832.
Of the company of twenty-four that came out in the fall of 1829, two returned
to Ohio; of the twentytwo who remained, only seven died in forty-one years.
John Green, and wife, Barbara Grove, came from Licking County, Ohio, in the fall
of 1829. He brought the irons for a saw and grist mill by team overland, and
millwrights to put them up. Mr. Green lived on the claim bought of Clark, in
Rutland, until 1832, when he removed to Dayton. He built a saw mill and put in a
run of stone in 1830, and a flouring mill in 1832. He was County Commissioner,
and occupied a prominent place in the business and early history of the county;
he died December 17th, 1874, aged 84; his widow, is still living, 85 years of
age. He had nine children: Eliza, married William L. Dunnavan, and lives in
Rutland; Nancy, married Albert Dunnavan, and lives in Rutland; Jesse, married
Isabella Trumbo; he served three terms as Justice of the Peace, and was three
years Town Supervisor; in 1849 he led a company of forty-nine men to the then El
Dorado, California. David, married Mary Stadden; served as Town Supervisor
several terms; in company with his brother Jesse he has run the large woolen
factory at Dayton — the first one run by water in the State. It was built in
1840, and enlarged in 1864. Joseph, died in 1855; Catharine, married George M.
Dunnavan, of Dayton; Isaac, born in Illinois, married Rebecca J. Trumbo, and
lives on the old farm; Rachel, married George Gibson; Rebecca, married Oliver W.
Trumbo.
Jacob Kite, from Licking County, Ohio, with Green's company, in the fall of
1829. He never married. A sort of Nimrod, he lived by hunting, and went West.
William Stadden, and wife, Elizabeth Hoadley, from Licking County, Ohio, in May,
1830, settled on S. 33, T. 34, R. 4; sold to Jonathan Daniels, and moved to
Dayton in 1831; built a flouring mill; was twice elected Sheriff of La Salle
County, and twice to the State Senate. He was a prominent and useful citizen,
and died in 1848. Children: Jonathan, married Elizabeth Long, in Rutland; Mary,
married David Green; William; Elizabeth, married Horace B. George; Richard,
married Sallie Sevant.
James McFadden, from Ohio, in the fall of 1831. Kept store in Dayton, where the
woolen mill now is; it was swept off by high water in the following spring. He
was captain of a company of Home Guards, raised in the county during the Black
Hawk war; was shot through the ankle by Indians on Indian creek in 1832; he went
to Galena.
George M. Dunnavan, from Licking County, Ohio, in 1830, with David Letts, who
settled on Section 3 in town of Eden. Mr. Dunnavan remained at Cedar Point, as
it was then called, till 1835, when he settled on S. T, T. 34, R. 4, on Buck
creek timber. He married Catharine Green, daughter of John Green. There are ten
children: Silas L., is in Montana; Louisa Jane, married D. S. Green, and resides
at Central City, Colorado; Emma, married Andrew Brown, and lives in Ottawa;
Lucien G., is at Central City, Colorado; Frank W., Mary E., Charles, Belle,
Cora, and Edward, are at home.
Thomas Parr, from Licking County, Ohio, in 1834; he married Sarah Ann Pitzer,
and settled on S. 1, T. 34, R. 3. They have six children: Jesse N., married Anna
Cain, and lives in Kansas; Amanda E., married Noah Brunk, and lives in Dayton;
Joseph B., married Sarah Knickerbocker in Manlius; Francis N., married Julia
Curry, of Serena; Martha A., married Lyman Cole, of Iowa; William H., married
Mary Ruger, and lives in Dayton.
Nathan Proctor bought the store and goods of David Letts, in the spring of 1836;
he had a very interesting family, and was himself a genial, able and popular
man, and did a prosperous business for about one year, and was noted for his
honorable and upright business habits. On his way to St. Louis to purchase
goods, he was detected in passing counterfeit money. He avoided arrest, but
never returned. He was found to be a member of the notorious band that then
infested the country from the Illinois to Wisconsin, called the Bandits of the
Prairies, who were horse thieves, counterfeiters, robbers, burglars, and
murderers. Dies, and plates for counterfeiting, were found in his store, and
years after, when the building was torn down, a copperplate engraving was found
behind the plastering. If his former or subsequent history should be written, it
is probable the name of Nathan Proctor would not appear.
Extracted from 1877 History of La Salle County Illinois, pages 266-273.
| Lee | DeKalb | Kane |
| Bureau |
 |
Kendall |
| Putnam | Grundy | |
| Marshall | Woodford | Livingston |
