Lost Farms of McHenry County

By Glynnis Walker and Arabella Anderson

Farmers from the East found the broad and fertile prairies of McHenry County offered the perfect soil and climate for growing corn, wheat, oats, barley, and rye. This led the way for a flourishing dairy industry that eventually supplied milk to the city of Chicago. The first settlements appeared in 1835 in towns such as Crystal Lake, Woodstock, Harvard, and Cary. Families such as the Walkups, the Crandalls, the Beardsleys, the Stickneys, and the Terwilligers travelled by oxcart and rode on horseback from distant states. As word of the lush countryside spread, other farmers came from England, Ireland, and Germany to plow the fertile fields of the nation's heartland.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781439639535

Glynnis Walker

Glynnis Walker and Arabella Anderson, mother and daughter, live in Woodstock. They discovered their passion for the old farms of McHenry County after moving there several years ago and wanted to immortalize the efforts of the original farm families before they are lost forever. Glynnis is a radio talk show host and author of eight other books. Arabella is a student at McHenry County College who is pursuing her career in filmmaking and photography.

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INTRODUCTION

After the Black Hawk War of 1832, farmers from the East Coast, hearing of the fertile farmland available in the Midwest, travelled along the Native American trails that radiated away from Chicago in search of farm sites. The rich soil of the high rolling prairies, abundant water and game, groves of oak and other hardwoods, and the proximity to the growing city of Chicago made the area northwest of the city extremely appealing for those willing to take on the task of carving out new lives in the wilderness.

The first settlers began arriving in the area in 1834. In prairie schooners and wagons loaded with possessions and families, they headed west from Virginia, New York, and New England. Later farmers came from England, France, Germany, and Ireland, braving the cold and the heat, to carve their part of the American dream out of the wilderness.

The bold and industrious people who first settled in McHenry County brought with them more than just their meager possessions and a determination to create a better life for their families—they brought their imagination. It is not surprising to find out that McHenry County has produced advancements in agriculture that have been instrumental in farming all over the world. The first grain silo was developed here by local farmer Fred Hatch of Spring Grove. The construction of these silos allowed the dairy industry to flourish because it meant that the silage could be stored and kept fresh throughout the winter months to feed the cows and maintain milk production. Because of their development, milk, butter, and cheese from McHenry County were shipped not only to the city of Chicago but also around the world.

Among the original settlers who came to this fertile prairie, recently home to the Potawatomi Indians and Chief Big Foot, was George Stickney, the first settler of Nunda Township. He was born in New Hampshire in 1809 and headed west in 1835. He set out on foot for Michigan and sailed on the St. Jo River to Chicago. From there, he trekked west on foot to the Fox River country. He staked his first claim near Elgin, but after a few months traveled north to Nunda. He made his claim there on December 10, 1835, in the area now known as Bull Valley. The yellow brick spirit house that he and his wife, Sylvia, shared with their 10 children still stands today.

His close neighbor was Samuel Terwilliger, who arrived in June 1836. Together, with a four-horse team, they ploughed the first 10 acres of Nunda. Terwilliger’s son Jerome, born on June 30, 1837, was the first white child born in the township.

Henry Weston is thought to have been the first white man to settle permanently in what is now Greenwood Township. He came in 1833 and named Queen Ann Prairie in honor of his wife, who was the first white woman in the township. She was also the first person to die in Greenwood Township. Soon after her death, Weston was married for a second time to a Miss Watson. Theirs was the first marriage in the township, although the first recorded marriage is that between Charles Frame and Mary Dufield on February 1, 1838, in a ceremony performed by Rev. Joel Wheeler.

One by one, the farmers came, and the county of McHenry began to grow. Towns were built and roads were cut through the prairie, but the introduction of railroads brought the greatest change. The Chicago and North Western Railway blanketed the county. One line pushed west through Marengo by early 1851. Two other lines were established in 1854. One ran diagonally across the county from the Fox River at Cary, reaching Harvard by 1855. The other ran north from Algonquin through eastern McHenry County beyond Richmond. A fourth line graced the northern tier of townships by 1861.

The years between 1840 and 1850 saw great change in McHenry County. The census of 1850 showed a drastic increase in population from around 2,000 to 14,978 inhabitants. This mass migration caused a demand for better commerce, which, in turn, lured men other than farmers, such as Benjamin Douglas and Col. William Hoffman, to build McHenry County’s first sawmill in 1839 in Crystal Lake. Others built the first creameries, shops, hotels, and newspapers.

The railroads also made the development of icehouses possible. In the early 1860s, a wealthy Chicagoan named Charles S. Dole purchased 1,000 acres in sparsely settled Crystal Lake and began harvesting ice from the lake. He and his brother James built 12 icehouses with the combined storage capacity for 100,000 tons of the frozen lake water. Employing idle McHenry County farmhands in the winter, Dole shipped ice via rail to demanding customers in Chicago, St. Louis, and as far off as New Orleans.

From the beginning, McHenry County was an area of great promise. Anyone who had an idea and was not afraid of hard work could turn their efforts into wealth. A century and half after the first settlers arrived, McHenry County was the 11th richest county in the nation, and it all began with the farmers.

One

FIRST CAME THE FARMERS

The first farmer came to McHenry County in 1834. On November 18 in that year, Samuel and Margaret Gillian and their children, who had travelled from Virginia seeking unsettled land to farm, crossed the Fox River at what is now Algonquin. They became the first white settlers in what was soon to become McHenry County. Technically speaking, the land still belonged to the Native Americans—the treaty that ceded the land did not go into effect until 1836—but no one was about to enforce it. Samuel’s brother John Gillian followed in 1835. Also by 1835, the Virginia