People liked Joel Matteson. In fact, the early Kendall County pioneer was so likable that he was eventually elected governor of Illinois, only (like so many future Illinois governors) to be disgraced after leaving office.

Matteson was, in fact, typical of many of the young single men who moved west to the Illinois frontier in the 1830s. Born in Watertown, New York, on Aug. 8, 1808, Matteson worked as a teacher and businessman before moving to South Carolina in 1831. There, he became a successful railroad construction foreman.

Moving to Illinois in 1834, Matteson may have hoped to get in on the ground floor of the new Illinois and Michigan Canal, proposed to connect Lake Michigan with the Illinois River.

The canal’s promoters saw it as an economic growth engine for Illinois, and their vision really wasn’t off the mark. As early as 1673, French explorers Louis Jolliet, a cartographer, and Father Jacques Marquette had suggested that a canal could easily connect Lake Michigan with the Illinois River, making a direct connection between the lake and the Mississippi River system.

The reality proved a lot more difficult than they’d expected. However, those problems weren’t encountered until actual surveys were completed nearly 200 years later.

But the idea continued to be popular among U.S. officials. In 1816, the U.S. Government signed a treaty with northern Illinois Indian tribes that included the sale of a canal corridor 10 miles either side of the Chicago-DesPlaines-Illinois river system from Lake Michigan southwest to what was then considered the head of navigation on the Illinois river at Ottawa. Time would also prove that Ottawa wasn’t necessarily the head of navigation, either.

As an interesting side note, part of the cession, marked on old maps as the Indian Boundary Line, passed through southeastern Kendall County and is still marked on some maps.

Matteson arrived in Kendall County in 1834, with Eli Gleason, Jeremiah Cole, a Dr. Corbin, and Daniel Lamb. The group built a log cabin about a mile north of Chester House’s claim, which was in Section 15 of today’s Seward Township in Kendall County. The land was south of the Indian Boundary Line and was thus inside the 1816 cession and eligible for sale by the government and settlement.

The group spent that winter cutting timber with which to build cabins and fence off claims. In 1835 all the men, with the exception of Dr. Cole, bought land from the government at the federal land office in Chicago, including Matteson’s 1,189 acres in Sections 9, 10, 15, 23, and 26 of Seward Township. All of it was well-watered by AuSable Creek and included timber enough for building and fence construction.

But Matteson soon moved on to Joliet where he became involved in manufacturing and politics. Elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1840, Matteson served until 1852 when the Democrats nominated him for governor.

And he won, garnering 80,645 votes to 64,405 for his Whig challenger, Edwin B. Webb, and 8,809 for the Free-Soil candidate, Dexter A. Knowlton.

At the beginning of Matteson’s term in office, the state debt had reached more than $16 million, primarily due to loans taken out to build the I&M Canal. Apparently a good manager, during his four years in office, Matteson reduced the debt by more than $4 million.

The most momentous political event during Matteson’s term was the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, introduced into the U.S. Senate by Sen. Stephen A. Douglas, an Illinois Democrat. The bill, eventually passed, eliminated the Missouri Compromise limiting the spread of slavery.

Debate in Illinois over the bill was intense, with Douglas coming in for sharp criticism. The practical political effect was that in 1855, Democrat Matteson lost his bid to go to the U.S. Senate. With the Illinois General Assembly boiling with pro and anti-slavery sentiment, the largely pro-slavery Democrats turned out to be political losers. Instead of the Democrat Matteson, Lyman Trumbull was elected by the General Assembly as the first Republican senator from Illinois.

Matteson left office in 1857 a popular man, having reduced the state debt, and by all accounts having been a good governor. But just two years later, Matteson found himself at the center of a financial scandal. Apparently checks were issued in 1839 for work done on the I&M Canal. The checks were cashed, but were for some reason never canceled. Eventually, the un-canceled checks were sent to then-Gov. Matteson, for safe-keeping (a bad idea, in retrospect).

In 1854, $300 of the checks were passed, and payment was granted. By 1857, more than $250,000 had been cashed. But, unfortunately, the checks had already been cashed once – in 1839. Matteson was shown to have cashed all of the checks except the first one for $300, although in what would be come a tradition of Illinois politics, he claimed innocence.

At any rate, Matteson put his real estate up for sale – perhaps even some still remaining in Kendall County – and returned $238,000 to the state. He was almost, but not quite, indicted for larceny. But give him credit: unlike so many of those who followed him, at least he made a good faith attempt to pay the money back he’d apparently stolen.

Matteson eventually moved to Chicago and later, according to historians, spent a lot of time traveling in Europe. For many years he was president of the Chicago and Alton Railroad, his problem with cashing already-cashed checks apparently not baring him from the rough and tumble world of 19th Century railroading. He died in Chicago on Jan. 31, 1873.

You have to wonder, back in the winter of 1834 when Matteson and his friends shared a rough log cabin in the AuSable timber, did they talk about their hopes and dreams? Did Matteson confide that he wanted to be governor and maybe U.S. senator? Did Eli Gleason talk about his sweetheart, Clarissa Johnson, whom he would marry in 1837? Did Jeremiah Cole have any idea he would one day be Kendall County Clerk and county treasurer?

Joel Matteson hit the heights and occasional depths. All things considered, though, he didn’t end up too badly.

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