Steven A. Jones, the man who named Waltham
township, was an engineer of Waltham, Massachusetts, but took the western fever.
In the spring of 1837 he went to Boston, then goino- by way of the Erie canal
and the Great Lakes, he and his two partners reached Chicago. The Illinois and
Michigan canal not being finished they came by land to the mouth of the
Vermillion river, where they hewed logs until the spring of 1838. They then
moved to what is now known as Waltham township, eight miles north of the canal.
The reason of coming so far away from the canal was that the land on each side
belonged to the state, which was selling for S2.50 per acre. The land where they
settled belonged to the government and could be bought for $1.25 per acre.
After building a sod
house it was time to plant the crops. Corn and beans being their first crop,
were planted by using a hatchet for cutting a hole in the soil so the seeds
could be dropped in. That fall three bushels of beans were harvested.
Plenty of wild game was found, but pork was wanted. Mr. Jones decided to go to
his nearest neighbor, Truman Hardey, who lived about seven miles south, to get
some pork.
"My hogs will not be fat until November some time. I will
send my boy up and tell you when I have butchered," said Mr. Hardey.
The
evening before Thanksgiving the boy came riding up on a horse and said, "We
butchered eighteen hogs, weighing two hundred pounds each when dressed, today."
Thanksgiving morning Mr. Jones yoked up his oxen to the ox-cart and went
after the pork. It being Thanksgiving, he stayed for dinner, having pork, corn
bread and beans, which Mr. Jones thought was the best dinner he had ever eaten.
"How much do you want for two of those hogs?" said Mr. Jones after
eating his dinner.
"They are worth a half cent a pound dressed, in Peru.
But do you think that I would be mean enough to charge a neighbor for two little
pigs?" said Mr. Hardey.
Mr. Jones took the meat home that evening. He
later took Mr. Hardey down a half bushel of beans, with which he was well
pleased.
Mr. Jones took a load of wheat to Chicago for which he received
37c per bushel. When he came back he found the sod house occupied by a man,
woman and three children. There had been a cholera scare in Peru, which caused
families to leave the city to get away from the disease. The man was willing to
work, but Mr. Jones not having anything for him to do let him stay, although he
had to sleep in the cattle pen to make room for the woman and children.
Mr. Jones now wanting a better house on his farm, went to the timber and
whip-sawed some boards to build himself a wooden house.
When the country
became more populated, a township was formed. Mr. Jones named it Waltham, after
Waltham, Massachusetts. For forty years thereafter he was the town clerk.
C. S. Jones now owns the farm of his father, which now contains modern
buildings and is farmed with power machinery. Beef cattle are also fed here
almost every winter. The house now on this farm is a few rods northwest of where
the sod house stood.
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 62.
| Lee | DeKalb | Kane |
| Bureau |
 |
Kendall |
| Putnam | Grundy | |
| Marshall | Woodford | Livingston |
