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MOUNT CARROLL.-" David Emmert and family, of Pennsylvania, came to Cherry Grove in May, 1840, and kept the Cherry Grove House for a while. In the Fall of 1841, N. Halderman, also, came into the county, and, stopping at Cherry Grove, made Emmert's acquaintance, and entered into an arrangement with him to build a mill somewhere in the county. Their attention was directed to the Mount Carroll mill site, which Halderman examined some time in the month of November, and being fully satisfied with its advantages, a mill company was formed, the site purchased, and operations commenced. The company was composed of David Emmert, N. Halderman, John Rinewalt, and Thomas Robinson, of the firm of Irvine & Robinson, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A log house was built at "Stags' Point," on the ground now occupied by the residence of I. P. Sheldon, and in January, 1842, the Emmert family moved in and occupied it. About this time Halderman fell in with Daniel Hurley, at Cherry Grove, who, with Hugh Slowey and one or two other men, were en route for Galena hunting a job of work. Halderman entered into a contract with Hurley to build the dam and lay the foundation of the mill building. Some twenty men were employed on this work, quarrying the stone for the mill, etc., all of whom boarded with Emmert. The next dwelling houses were built by some of the men employed in the mill enterprise. Jesse and Thomas Rapp settled here in 1842, intending to unite their fortunes with the mill company, but subsequently changed their minds. Jesse Rapp built the first house south of the stone hotel (now the Chapman House), soon after the town was laid out, some two or three houses having been built in advance of the survey. The first season after the survey, a man named Goltman built a house on the lot subsequently occupied by John S. Miller's store. The same year a house was built on the first corner south of that now occupied by the Chapman House. Until 1844, when the Chapman House was built, this was the largest and best house in town, and was used as a boarding-house by Thomas Rapp. Soon after the completion of this (then) somewhat aristocratic house, Harlan Pyle built another one just west of the mill-race, which was afterwards rebuilt by Evan Rea." Thus commenced the settlement of Mount Carroll, and here the settlement will be left to be taken up again in a local history of the growth and prosperity of the city.

YORK.-TO Norman D. French belongs the honor of pioneering the settlement in this division of the county, where he made a claim in 1835; broke up some ground in 1836; built a cabin in 1837, and raised his first crop in 1838. Mr. Armour says he had, by his early experience among the hills and mountains of Vermont, become disgusted with them, and while assisting in the United States' survey of the lands along the Mississippi, selected the site of his present home. William Dysen, Sr., and his sons, William, Jr., and Hezekiah; his son-in-law, Russell Colvin, and George Helms, a relative, came in 1836. These new settlers, because of the numerous gushing springs to be found there, made their claims along the bluffs. A year or two later, a man named Edgerly settled near French, and William St. Ores and Jacob Potter settled just west of the centre of town 23, range 4-probably on section 9. No other settlements are recorded until 1838, when Col. Beers Tomlinson located on the lands now occupied by his son, Beers B. Tomlinson. When Col. Tomlinson came to Carroll County to locate a new home his attention was directed to York by Samuel Preston, Sr., who says of him: "Colonel Tomlinson was a man of dignified presence,

and would at once be recognized as a man born to lead and not to follow. Yet he had none of those airs of loftiness suggestive of the great 'I' and little 'U' that characterize some men. His nature was social and jovial, and he relished a joke equal to the best in that line. His wife was a Bailey, and he was soon followed to his new home by that family and their kindred, the Balcoms. His brother, Seymour Tomlinson, and the Athertons came afterwards, but only Daniel B. Kenyon and his sons, and Joshua Bailey, came prior to 1841. Col. Tomlinson was a captain in the war of 1812, and was born almost in sight of old Fort Ticonderoga, and, no doubt had some of the Ethan Allen spirit in him." Levi Kent was York's first school teacher and taught at Bluffville.

FREEDOM. This township has but little history that is not included in that of Cherry Grove settlement. Owen's Point, as it was called, where John C. Owen resided, was in the limits of Freedom, as were the farms of the Moffetts, Marks and Lairds. The Indians were numerous for several years after the Black Hawk War, and as late as 1835-6 a trading post was maintained at Owen's Point, where guns, ammunition, calico, blankets, whisky, red handkerchiefs, beads, etc., were exchanged to the Indians for peltries, etc. The Indians were a source of annoyance and fear, especially to the women and children.

SALEM. The earliest settlers of Salem, of whom any trace has been kept, were David Masters, George Swaggert, Seymour Downs, William Mackay, Duncan Mackay, and Henry Reynolds, David Masters being the first settler, having selected a claim and built a cabin, in 1837.

ROCK CREEK's first settlers were David Becker and Zachariah Kinkaid. Becker sold to Daniel Belding. Richard A. Thompson was an early settler, and the first to introduce cheese-making in the county.

LIMA.-John Chambers and Philetus Peck were the first white occupants of this beautiful and naturally rich and attractive section of the county. Peck came some time previous to 1840.

WOODLAND. This is the most heavily timbered part of the county, and was first occupied by William Thompson and Moses Wooten. The Hendersons and Gills came in 1842 or 1843, and Uriah Green came about the same time.

These notes on the first settlements in the different parts of the county bring us back to the general history of the county, at the point from which we digressed. A first court house had been erected and was occupied by the various county officers. The first term of the Circuit Court in the new building was held in October, 1844-Judge Thomas C. Browne, presiding. The following named citizens were the

Grand Jurors.- Alvin Humphrey, Samuel Drain, David Becker, James McCourtie, James Webster, E. Longsdon, Royal Cooper, David B. Hartsough, James Burnett, Thomas B. Rhodes, Vance L. Davidson, Francis Garner, Israel Jones, John Johnson, Peter Atherton, Griffith Carr, G. W. Dwinnell, R. R. Brush, Harlan Pyle, Beers Tomlinson, William Harmon, Alexis Bristol, B. C. Baily-23.

Petit Jurors.-David L. Bowen, Nathan K. Lord, William Blundell, Anson Closson, Butler E. Marble, John P. Garr, Walton Thomas, Jared Bartholomew, Samuel McHoes, Stephen Goff, Thomas Hough, Benjamin Church, William Owings, John Pierce, Jr., Robert Beatty, John Fosdick, Hiram McNamer, J. C. Shottenkirk, William Lowry, Cyrus Kellogg, Lyman Kent-24.

I. B. Wells, the attorney for the people, not being present, the Court appointed James M. Strade attorney for the people pro tem. There were eight criminal cases--one for perjury, on a change of venue from Jo Daviess County; one for assault with intent to kill; one for contempt of court as a grand juror; one on forfeiture of recognizance; one for riot; one for larceny, on a change of venue from Jo Daviess; one on indictment against a supervisor; and one on indictment for malicious mischief-shooting a mare.

It is to the credit of the people of the county that but few really bad or desperate characters ever found an abiding place in their midst. The criminal docket, as compared with other counties, shows a lower percentage of convictions than most of them-not because evil-doers have not been prosecuted, but because crimes were not committed.

In 1845, six years after the county was organized, the total amount of county tax was $935.27. The old journal of the county commissioners court, under date of Wednesday, June 3, 1846, shows that the "following settlement was made with the collector, Sumner Downing:

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which being the amount of receipts for county tax-list, 1845, the same were ordered canceled and satisfied."

Compared with the annual tax-lists for the last seven years, this amount of $935.27 is very insignificant, indeed. From 1870 up to and including 1877, the amount of county tax is as follows: In 1870, $12,135.63; 1871, $14,332.86; 1872, $17,339.58; 1873, $15.250.50; 1874, $17,927.02; 1875, $17,542.64; 1876, $15,222.95; 1877, $17,452.88. Total, in seven years, $127,204.06.

In 1840 the population was 1,023. In 1850 it was 4,586; in 1860, 11,733; in 1870, 16,705; increase from 1860 to 1870, 4,792, or a little over twenty-five per cent. Since the last census, in 1870, the increase, according to the best sources of information, has not been more than ten per cent.

COUNTY JAIL MATTERS.

In October, 1846, the commissioners ordered the county clerk to advertise for sealed proposals for building a jail, the "walls to be of stone, each two feet in thickness, and not less than one and a half feet long and one foot deep, jointed and coupled top and bottom with iron pins, three quarters inch rod; the walls to commence four feet below the surface of the earth, and to raise twelve feet above the surface; the building to be 16 by 20 feet on the outside; the first floor to be made of solid hewn timber, ten inches thick, and to be firmly set in the outside walls, and to be covered with wellseasoned, two-inch, merchantable oak plank, jointed, the top of the floor to be two feet above the surface of the ground, and spiked to the hewn timber four inches apart. Also, a floor at the height of the top of the wall, of solid hewn timber, jutting over sufliciently to give eave, and to be covered on the inside with well-seasoned one-and-a-half-inch oak plank, and spiked the same as the lower floor," etc. The inside of the building was to be divided, according to the plans, into three apartments, or sections, by strong, thick oaken walls, made of seasoned two-inch oak plank, three thicknesses, firmly bolted and spiked together. The outside door was to be a heavy

oaken one, covered with sheet iron. The inner one was to be of equal thickness, and same kind of material." Bids were solicited through the advertising columns of the Jeffersonian and Gazette, of Galena, and by three written notices put up in the three most conspicuous places in the county, etc. The records, however, do not show that any bids were ever received. But this is not surprising, for it is a subject of universal regret, if not of complaint, among the people of the county, that the records in the county clerk's office were very indifferently and negligently kept until Major Hawk succeeded to the office, in December, 1865. When he came into the office many of the important papers had not been filed iu regular succession, but had nearly all been tumbled into boxes, without any regard to order, and it was many months before they were resurrected from chaos and confusion and arranged in any thing like decent shape. Now, there is a place for every thing and every thing is in its place."

*

Whether any bids were received for the building of a jail or not is a matter of but little consequence, since it is known that no jail, such as proposed in the plans quoted above, was ever built. In those days there were not many evil doers in the county, and what few there were, were of the petty order, and in cases where they were unable to give bail, they were placed in the keeping of some citizen. Sometimes a pretty hard customer would "turn up," that couldn't be trusted to the keeping of any citizen, and such characters would be taken to the jail at Galena. This practice prevailed until about 1850, when one of the lower rooms of the old court house was converted into a jail and divided off into cells, and continued to be so used until the erection of the present county buildings. That jail was none of the strongest, and when, perchance a desperate character, tramping through the country, would commit some of the higher grades of crime, and would be arrested and held to answer, he would be transferred to the jail of Jo Daviess County, to await trial at the next term of the circuit court. But with the erection of the present court house and jail-the latter being considered the strongest and best in the state--the county became thoroughly independent in this regard, and fully competent to take care of the worst of "jail birds."

TOWNSHIP ORGANIZATION.

From the organization of the county in 1839, up to November, 1849, the management of county affairs had been under the control of three county commissioners. The law under which they were elected provided that one of them should serve for one year, one for two years, and one for three years, so that one commissioner only should be elected annually. At the first session of the County Commissioners Court, terms were drawn for in the manner following: Three tickets were prepared, on one of which was written "one year," on another one "two years," and on a third one, "three years." These slips of paper were put into a hat or box, and passed to the commissioners, when each one of them would draw out a ticket. The one who drew the one year" ticket would serve one year; the one who drew the "two year" ticket was entitled to serve two years, and the one drawing the "three year" ticket would hold his office for three years. Under this

* R. G. Bailey was Major Hawk's immediate predecessor, and had made great improvements in the management of the records. The real fault belongs to the early county clerks, and the carelessness of county judges, prior to Judge Patch, in not enforcing order.

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