Life in Scotland was very hard in the days before the Revolution. It was
no better in America, if not worse, because of the oppression of the
English.
When David Wood arrived here his first occupation was
fighting British soldiers.
After the war he worked in Boston and
saved his money. He married and settled in Plymouth. In 1792 he removed to
Pawlet, Vermont, where my great-great-grandfather Timothy Wood was born.
Here also my great-grandfather Benjamin D. Wood was born. He married Harriet
Brewster, a descendant of Elder Brewster, one of the Mayflower's passengers
in 1620.
A few years later they became restless and started West to
where some of Mrs. Wood's relatives had gone about five years before.
They started out on a marble barge going from Rutland, Vt. They went
down the Champlain barge canal to the Erie canal. They went through the Erie
canal to Buffalo, where they changed onto a lake steamer. They went up Lake
Huron to Lake Michigan. They stopped at Chicago, where they changed onto
another barge going down the Illinois and Michigan canal.
They
landed at a small hotel at the junction of the Illinois and Fox rivers,
where Ottawa now stands. Here they unloaded their few pieces of furniture.
Mr. Wood started to walk across the country to get a wagon from Mrs. Wood's
brother, James Brewster, who lived twelve miles away. After he got the wagon
he went back to get his family and their furniture.
They lived in
James Brewster's log cabin until Mr. Wood found a deserted cabin a few miles
further south. They lived in this a few years, until an old farmer had them
come to live with him and help him, as he was getting old. This farm is now
owned by John Wilson.
They stayed here a few years, but were
dissatisfied because they were so far away from the church and their friends
and relatives.
The first church was an old deserted log cabin,
located near where the Waltham Masonic hall now stands. This cabin was also
used as a school. As more people came, they used an old granary as a church.
When the Wood children went to school they would take turns carrying and
caring for the baby of the family.
The fences in those days were
made of rails. In the places where there were no trees to split for rails,
or where they were too far away to be hauled to where they were to be used,
the men would take shovels and cut away the sod in a line to mark off the
farms.
In the springtime the men would burn off all of the prairie
grass around the cabins and stables to prevent prairie fires or to keep the
fires from burning down their buildings.
In the sloughs there grew a
long, tough grass. Along with this there was mud and water all the year.
These sloughs were of acres in extent and hindered traveling very much.
Now, the descendants of these early pioneers, and the descendants of
many others, likewise, are scattered throughout the West.
Extracted 08 Nov 2018 by Norma Hass from Stories of Pioneer Days in La Salle County, Illinois, by Grammar Grade Pupils, published in 1932, page 16.
| Lee | DeKalb | Kane |
| Bureau |
 |
Kendall |
| Putnam | Grundy | |
| Marshall | Woodford | Livingston |
