Township 29, Range 2, constitutes the town of Groveland. It is the
southernmost town in the county, and the last settled. With the town of Osage,
it lies between the counties of Marshall and Livingston, and when those counties
were organized from territory taken partly from La Salle, both of them refused
to take the territory included in those towns. So La Salle from necessity had to
keep it. With the present population and wealth they constitute no insignificant
portion of the county. The west side of the town is the most elevated. Prairie
creek rises near New Rutland and runs to and along the north line. Long Point
creek rises near Minonk, and crosses the town from southwest to northeast, while
the southeast portion is drained by Diamond creek. All these run northeastwardly
to the Vermillion, and make effectual drainage. In 1855 the town was an unbroken
prairie, without an inhabitant. The first house in the town was moved on to the
present site of New Rutland, and made a section-house on the Illinois Central
Railroad. It was made a liquor saloon, and destroyed by a mob in 1865. The
railroad was built through the town before it was settled, and doubtless was the
agency that developed its resources. Abner Shinn built the first house and Oscar
Jacobson occupied it in March, 1855, being the first resident in the town. He
left in 1862. The second resident was Elias Frink, and wife, Emily Whitman, from
Onondaga County, N. Y.; he settled on S. 22. His only child, W. E., married
Orvilla Kenyon, and has seven children. He was a good soldier, and is Police
Magistrate in the village of Dana. The third was Lewis W. Martin, from Indiana;
he made an improvement on Sec. 10; sold to Alva Winans and went to Nebraska.
Geo. W. Gray located and lives on S. 11 in 1855, and raised a large family. The
fifth settler was William Martin; he pre-empted the northeast quarter Section
26th. An Englishman by birth, he enlisted in the 33d Regiment, and died on his
way home from the army; a bachelor, he left no relatives but a sister, Mrs. Anna
Swift of Bloomington. Nelson Cooper, from Maryland, a carpenter by trade,
settled on S. 17. He enlisted in the 104th Regiment. His wife was Sarah M.
Jacobson, daughter of John Jacobson. He is the present Supervisor of the town.
John Jacobson, from Germany to Ohio, was a magistrate there; was Supervisor here
for several years, and moved to Nebraska in 1869.
An emigration association was formed in January, 1855, of about two hundred
members, residing in the vicinity of Rutland, Vermont. Each member paid ten
dollars, and was to have a lot in an embryo city to be located somewhere in the
far West. Dr. Allen and W. B. Burns were the locating committee. The present
site of New Rutland was selected, being the northwest 40 acres on S. 18, and
southwest 40 on S. 7. The railroad gave the members a preference in the
selection of their lands at 20 per cent, discount. W- B. Burns came on the
ground in August, 1855; built a house and occupied it in 1856; he was the master
spirit of the enterprise and insured its success; bad health induced him to
remove to California, where he died in 1875. Willard Proctor and Rufus Weston
were the first to select lands under the arrangement with the railroad. John
Wadleigh came to the town in the fall of 1855; settled in the village in 1856;
was Capt. Co. I, l04th Regiment, and bad the care of the regiment for awhile;
now Postmaster at New Rutland. Daniel Wadleigh came about the same time as his
brother John.
Daniel Arnold came in the spring of 1856. Has been Justice of the Peace and
Supervisor, and held other town offices.
S. L. Bangs came in 1856; he was agent for Mark Bangs, a younger brother, in
building five dwellings, and purchasing about $100,000 worth of railroad lands,
and breaking 800 acres of prairie. The speculation failed of success in the
revulsion of 1857.
John T. Grove came in 1856; was called the village blacksmith; was afterwards a
merchant. His son, E. Gove, was a successful teacher; a Lieutenant in the
Thirty-third Regiment, and breveted a Major.
Charles Lamb, Andrew Moffatt and Reuben Taylor came in the spring of 1856.
John Grove and son, J. M. Grove, came and settled on the west half of Section
15, in the spring of 1 856. John Grove was the oldest man in the town. J. M.
taught school from his eighteenth year; studied law, and was admitted to the bar
in Ohio. He held the offices of Assessor and Justice of the Peace and
Supervisor.
John H. Martin, born in Wayne County, Illinois, was raised in Marshall County,
having lived there since 1829; removed on to Section 25 in March, 1856.
Alexander Clegg, from West Virginia, settled on Sec. 25. His daughter, Florence,
was the first child born in the town.
Marshall Smiley, on Sec. 36; Thomas Keeder and Joseph H. Brown settled near the
south line of the town; A. Mullen and B. Ballihger settled on S. 6 — all in the
spring of 1836.
The first religious meetings were held in the hotel stable; and afterwards in
the hotel. Esquire Barney O'Neal on the Vermillion, twenty miles away, was the
nearest Justice of the Peace; there was no law, yet all was orderly. At the
Presidential election in 1856, the political excitement reached the infant
settlement, and all went twenty miles to the house of Alif Goff, near the
Vermilion, to vote — all but one voting for Fremont. Groveland was made a town
in the fall of 1856. First election was held in April, 1857; W. B. Burns,
Supervisor; John Wadleigh, Clerk; and J.M. Grove, Assessor.
Groveland has two villages and railroad stations within its limits: New Rutland
on the Illinois Central Railroad, and Dana on the Chicago, Pekin & Southwestern
— both of which roads pass through the town. New Rutland has five churches, a
graded school, ten stores, a grain elevator, mill, and 800 population. Dana, in
the southeastern part of the town, has two grain elevators, one church, six
stores, a mill, and 250 population. Like all settlers in a prairie town, the
people know the importance of timber-planting, and belts and groves of timber
are scattered over its surface on nearly every farm.
Extracted from 1877 History of La Salle County Illinois, pages 468-472.
| Lee | DeKalb | Kane |
| Bureau |
 |
Kendall |
| Putnam | Grundy | |
| Marshall | Woodford | Livingston |
