ship organization, when the latter two were struck off, and then, as noted above, Sullivan was separated from Saunemin. Sullivan is now known as Township 28 north, Range 8 east of the Third Principal Meridian, and is situated in the eastern tier of townships, with Ford County on the east, Charlotte Township on the south, Saunemin on the west and Broughton on the north. The first year after Sullivan was separated from Saunemin, Alexander Harbison was elected Supervisor unanimously, there not being a Democratic vote polled. Jacob Lighty was elected Justice of the Peace, and David Taylor Town Clerk, at this, the first election. Harbison was School Treasurer in addition to being Supervisor. The present township officers are as follows, viz.: J. J. Shearer, Supervisor; James Maddin and R. C. Griswold, Justices of the Peace; Martin Detweiler, Assessor; Andrew Hoag, Collector; A. M. Morrill, Town Clerk.

The township has always been Republican in politics ever since its organization, and did its duty nobly during the late war in furnishing soldiers to the full extent of its ability, which was, to send nearly every man subject to military duty. David Harbison was the first man in the township to volunteer. He was a brother of Alexander Harbison, noticed in another place as the first settler in the town, and "stood not upon the order of going, but went" without delay.

When Sullivan was struck off from Saunemin, it was necessary for it to have a name. After some discussion of the matter, it was agreed to call it after Mr. Sullivant, an extensive farmer of Ford County, and who owns several sections of land in this township. As will be seen, the t has been dropped in the name of the township, which is the termination of Sullivant's. That of the township, however, was intended originally for the same, notwithstanding the present difference in the spelling of them.

As noted in the beginning of this chapter, Sullivan Township is prairie land entirely, with no timber but such as has been planted since the settling up of the country. With the adoption of all the modern improvements in drainage, these prairies are now ranked among the finest farming land in this section of the county.

DWIGHT TOWNSHIP.

There is nothing more astonishing to the professional traveler, or even to the staid "old fogy" New Englander who has never been beyond the shadow of his own sterile hills, than the startling rapidity with which the Great West has been developed and settled. As if by magic, towns, cities and villages have sprung up from the rank prairie grass and unfolded in grandeur and magnificence. Yesterday, where the tall grass waved in the wind and myriad wild flowers bloomed, and spent

to-morrow, as it were, finds a city or village laid out, and buildings going up at a rate to startle anybody but a wide-awake Westerner who has been born and

bred to this spirit of enterprise, and views it as a matter of course. A conversation overheard on the train, a day or two ago, between a couple of old gentlemen, awakened this train of thought and called up these reflections. One of them was from Western New York and the other was a native of Massachusetts, but both now lived in Illinois. Said one, "It is the most astonishing thing in the world, this amazing growth and development of the Western country. "Yes," said the other, "down East, where I came from, there is the old road along which we went to school, and the rock where we kicked off a toe nail; the chestnut stump that stood by the side of the road, etc. In ten years we find them just as they were in our school days. There is the rock where we stubbed our toe, and the old chestnut stump by the roadside; nothing is changed. But here in the West, what changes take place in that period! Let us be absent from our neighborhood for ten years, and when we return we find nothing familiar; everything-almost the face of nature itself has changed." Thus it is, that where, a few years ago, was a wilderness, unbroken and undisturbed save by wild beasts, to-day are the most flourishing farms, villages, towns and cities. Little more than a quarter of a century ago, the township of Dwight was a wild prairie, untrodden by the foot of the white man, and, as we have been informed, without a single stick of timber of any kind-not even so much as a hazel or willow shrub. Now, beautiful trees and artificial groves abound in all parts of it, the result of the planting and cultivation of timber. Cottonwood, maple and elm seem to be the favorite varieties in this section, and grow and flourish in a very satisfactory manner.

Like all the prairie land, this township was not settled for more than twenty years after settlements had been made in the groves of timber and along the water courses of the county. John Conant came from Rochester, Ohio, in 1854, and settled on the northeast quarter of Section 8, which is conceded to be the first permanent settlement in Dwight Township, outside of the village of the same name. He put up a frame building, which is still standing in a good state of preservation, though its builder has "mingled with the clods of the valley." He died a few years ago, at an advanced age; but his widow is still living, and occupies the old homestead. Mr. Conant was the first Postmaster at Dwight, and the first Justice of the Peace after township organization. The next year, Nelson Cornell came to the neighborhood and put up a house on Section 5, which he still owns and occupies. Thomas Little settled near Cornell soon after. He sold out, ten or twelve years ago, and removed to Wilmington, where at present he resides.

James McIlduff, in 1854, bought the northwest quarter of Section 18, on which he had some ten acres broken very soon after his purchase. This, it is claimed, was the first "breaking of prairie" in Dwight Township. He was a native of Pennsylvania, and came to his farm the next year after this plowing, and settled permanently. He occupied his farm for a number of years, then removed to the village, where he served as Postmaster during the Presidential

term of Andrew Johnson. He still lives in the village of Dwight, and is at present serving his second term as Police Magistrate.

In 1855, James C. Spencer, of New York, began improvements on his farm adjoining the present village of Dwight. He was born on the Hudson River, below the city of Albany, and was a lineal descendant of Hon. Ambrose Spencer, once Chief Justice of the State, and, through his mother, of George Clinton, first Governor of New York and Vice President of the United States, and of De Witt Clinton, also Governor of New York and the projector of the Erie Canal. He owned about 1,200 acres of land here in a body, and came to the place as an engineer of the railroad company. Mr. West, mentioned in this chapter as one of the early settlers of Dwight, broke the first prairie, on Spencer's farm. It was on this farm that the Prince of Wales made his headquarters for a few days, in 1860, as noticed further on in these pages. Mr. Spencer at present lives in Milwaukee, and is Vice President of the Davenport. & Northwestern Railroad of Iowa, and Consulting Engineer of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad.

6.

Henry A. Gardner, then a resident of Joliet, who owned 1,000 acres of land east of the village, commenced improvements on it this year. He was originally from Massachusetts, and he and Spencer and R. P. Morgan, the latter more particularly mentioned in the history of the village, were civil engineers in the employ of the Chicago & Mississippi Railroad Company," as the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Road was then called. Mr. Gardner was employed as rodman on the Great Western Railroad in 1836, under Morgan, and soon advanced to Junior Assistant. He was engaged, at different periods, as a civil engineer on the Hudson River Railroad, the Harlem Railroad and the Mohawk & Hudson River Railroad. In 1845, he came West and accepted a position on the Illinois & Michigan Canal, and in 1853 was employed, as above stated, in constructing the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad from Joliet to Bloomington. He located his lands near the present village of Dwight, when making the railroad survey, and also settled his family here. After spending some time on his farm, he was called to a position on the Hudson River Railroad. At the time of his death, July 26, 1875, he was Chief Engineer of the Michigan Central Railroad. The following statement, made a short time before he died, shows his excellent business qualities: "I never had a bill, approved by me, returned for correction or explanation during my professional life." He has left behind him a family of able representatives, of whom the eldest son, Richard Gardner, occupies the original homestead.

Another of the early settlers and substantial men of the neighborhood was Benjamin Chester. He settled here in 1860, and was originally from Connecticut, and sprung from a good old Revolutionary stock. He died in 1868, and his son, Wm. P. Chester, who appeared fully capable of the management of their large farm, followed his father to the land of rest in October, 1869, leaving a sister, Miss Hannah Chester, the only surviving member of this excellent family.

C. Roadnight, from the "chalky cliffs" of Old England, settled just north of the village in 1857. A man of extensive means and of fine education, he soon obtained the pseudonym of "Sir Charles," a name that ever after clung to him among the democratic citizens of this "blarsted country." He undertook to farm on the English style, but it did not result very successfully. In this country, and particularly in the great West, where there are men who own farms nearly as large as the British Empire, and on which there is annually wasted as much, perhaps, as is made on the largest English farms in a single year, there is little attention paid to scientific farming, and, indeed, in the great every-day rush, it seems that the farmers actually have no time to devote to the science of the business. Mr. Roadnight was, for a number of years, General Freight Agent of the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad, a position he filled with entire satisfaction.

This includes a number of the early settlers of the township outside of the village of Dwight. From this period forward, the influx of immigrants was too rapid to further admit of individual notice in the history of the town, but there are those whose histories are identified with the village, and in that connection will receive proper mention. The country around the little village rapidly filled up, and the new railroad, when completed, was an inducement, to people in search of homes, to bring them to this section, and soon not a "forty" nor "eighty" was left untenanted.

Like all portions of a new country, the main historical importance centers in the cities or more important villages. It is so in Dwight Township, and very few items of interest, beyond the mere fact of settlement, have occurred outside of the village limits. There are, however, one or two instances that belong in the township history, and will be given in their proper order.

One of the most important, and, perhaps, deserving of precedence, even among our republican people, who have little veneration for royalty, but a good deal of curiosity perhaps, was the visit of the Prince of Wales to this country, in 1860. All who read the public journals of the day are familiar with the main features of his tour of the United States, and it is only necessary to state here, that the Prince, en route from Chicago to St. Louis, stopped here for a few days' shooting. From a work entitled "Past, Present and Future of Dwight, written by F. B. Hargreaves, Esq., and published by The Dwight Star, we extract an account of the royal visit. Speaking of the events of the year 1860, the author says: "This year was remarkable for nothing, as far as we can learn, except the visit of the Prince of Wales. The theory of the divine right of kings has long since been exploded, and is now thrown aside by all intelligent people. Yet, if the theory has gone, one of the practices which it involved remains. There seems to be a natural craving in the minds of many to see a royal personage, even if it be only a second cousin. The strangest part of it is, that such a desire should be manifested in our own country, the acknowledged land of independence and the home of republican thought and feeling. It is

true, however, that our countrymen, and women especially, have a great reverence for foreign nobility, and the visit of the Prince of Wales, and later of the Duke Alexis, confirms the statement. That this state of things exists is not surprising, but it is sad. It would seem that if a tribute of praise or meed of honor is due to any man, it is to him who has wrought noble deeds for his country; it is to that man who, laying aside all selfish ambition and worldly fame, devotes his faculties, his energies, his life to the welfare of our common humanity.

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"During his progress through our country, the Prince of Wales met with an enthusiastic reception. His visit to this neighborhood was expected, and the residence of James C. Spencer was prepared for his visit. The household furniture was taken away, and special furniture, sent ahead by the Prince's party, supplied its place. A crowd of citizens gathered on the edge of the railroad opposite Mr. Spencer's residence and waited for the Prince's arrival. It is mournful to be compelled to state that no triumphal arch had been reared; no town band was there with pleasant music, no leading citizen to present an address of welcome to the youthful scion of royalty. About 27 minutes after 6 P. M., on September 22, 1860, the Prince of Wales arrived at this town. He was at once escorted to the residence of Mr. Spencer, where he remained during his stay here. He came to this neighborhood for the purpose of shooting, and had not been many minutes at the farm before he called loudly for his gun, and announced his intention of having some sport that evening. He only shot one bird, a little screech owl,' and that was enough for the time being. The next day was Sunday, when the Prince and his suite attended divine service at the Presbyterian Church. The sermon was preached by the Rev. P. D. Young. The Prince was much pleased with the service, and, in consequence, made a donation to the church. The next day, the party, numbering some twelve or fourteen gentlemen, commenced shooting in downright earnest. One day they shot from the train, and had such success that over two hundred quails and chickens were bagged. The Prince was then 19 years old, and had a good appearance. He was looking remarkably well, and enjoyed excellent health. His spirits were always good and his manner uniformly genial. He was very much pleased with our country, and expressed himself eminently satisfied with his visit to Dwight. His stay was short; he came on Saturday and went away on Wednesday. "The last day he was here, he planted an elm tree on Mr. Spencer's farm, and it has now grown to large proportions. Those who are curious about such matters can walk up to the residence of Mr. P. E. Miller and see that elm tree for themselves. It will no doubt be gratifying to look upon a tree planted by royal hands. Mr. Miller was living on the farm at the time of the Prince's visit, and has communicated many items of information to us.

"The first night, one of the principal attendants on his Royal Highness made an unpleasant and uncalled-for remark to Mr. Miller. That gentleman