On June 1, 1833, 190 years ago, Daniel Pearce and other members of his extended family arrived along the banks of the Fox River. The group had traveled by ox-drawn wagons from their homes near modern Dayton, Ohio, to find their new homes.
Daniel and his wife chose a likely spot along Waubonsie Creek, about 1/2 mile above its mouth on the Fox River to stake their claim.
Their first home burned to the ground in December 1872, but the house they built to replace it still stands on the spot they decided to settle, now part of Oswego’s Fox Bend Golf Course.
Two years before the Pearces arrived, the terrible “Winter of the Deep Early Snow” tormented those who had just arrived on the prairie, as well as the resident Native People, killing a number of pioneers and driving others to the brink of starvation. Then in spring 1832, the Black Hawk War broke out, driving away many pioneer families and dissuading others from coming west.
Back in Ohio, the Pearces had heard good things about the rich Illinois prairies, perhaps from Jacob Carpenter, their brother Elijah’s son-in-law. No need to clear timber or grub out stumps to farm on the prairie, they were told. So in summer 1832, after the Black Hawk War panic ended, the Pearce brothers and their brother-in-law, William Wilson, walked west and staked their claims in the Fox Valley before heading back east to wind up their affairs before moving.
The winter of 1832-33 was followed by a fine spring. According Kendall County historian Rev. E.W. Hicks: “The year 1833 opened out splendidly, as if to make amends for the hardships of the year before. The snow went away in February, and early in March the sheltered valleys and nooks by the groves were beautifully green, and by the end of the month, stock could live on the prairies anywhere.”
That last statement was key, because during that era, most settlers traveled by wagon, driving their livestock along as they traveled. So pioneer emigrants had to wait until there was sufficient grass for grazing along the trail. That often meant a late start, leaving little time remaining to plant and harvest a crop after arriving on their Illinois claims before winter set in.
But in 1833, everything came together at just the right time. As Hicks put it, “The tide of emigration set in early, and in one summer more than trebled the population of the county.”
Among other settlers that year were New Yorkers Earl Adams and Ebenezer Morgan and their families traveling together. Adams settled on the claim he’d made two years before on what today is Courthouse Hill in Yorkville, while Morgan settled in Specie Grove along the creek that still bears his name in what is today’s NaAuSay Township.
John Schneider, who had helped Joe Naper build his mill on the DuPage River, came farther west prospecting for good land and a likely site for a new mill, staking a claim at the mouth of Blackberry Creek on the west bank of the Fox River. A year later, he left Naper’s settlement to build his new dam and mill.
Brothers Lyman and Burr Bristol also arrived and staked their first claims. We can only wonder whether Lyman Bristol was even then thinking about establishing the town that would carry his name. Now the west side of Yorkville, the old village of Bristol boasted a town square park donated by Bristol that still is the site of Yorkville’s annual Fourth of July celebrations.
Then on June 1, Daniel, John and Walter Pearce, and their brother-in-law, William Smith Wilson and their families, arrived at the present site of Oswego after six weeks on the trail from Ohio, becoming the first permanent settlers in what is today Oswego Township.
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Wilson staked his claim at what is today the busy “Five Corners” intersection of U.S. Route 34 and Ill. Route 25 in downtown Oswego. Daniel Pearce’s claim along Waubonsie Creek included not only what now is the Fox Bend Golf Course, but also the Windcrest subdivision, and the Oswego Commons shopping center. Meanwhile, Daniel’s two brothers, Walter and John, and their families, settled west of the Fox River. Walter claimed land 2 miles west of Oswego toward Yorkville along what is today Route 34; John’s claim was just north of the future village of Oswego. Elijah settled with his daughter and son-in-law on what is now the site of Montgomery.
The first of the Wormleys, John and William, also arrived in 1833. Chester House made his claim that year in the grove that was named after him along the east side of AuSable Creek just north of U.S. Route 52 in today’s Seward Township.
In May 1833, the Peter Minkler family left New York with a wagon train of 25 prospective settlers. They arrived in what eventually became Kendall County in late summer just in time to help with the wheat harvest, settling along the trail that became Minkler Road. Peter’s son, 18-year-old Smith Minkler, traded a day’s labor cutting wheat for early settler and entrepreneur Peter Specie in exchange for four apple tree seedlings, the ancestors of the famed Minkler Apple.
Meanwhile, David Evans, a North Carolinian, was told about the area by a Black Hawk War veteran. He arrived in 1833 to settle along Big Rock Creek. Also settling in Little Rock Township that year was John Darnell, who staked a claim along Little Rock Creek.
Also among the crowd arriving was Daniel Platt, whose ancestors founded Plattsburg, New York. Platt bought the claim of the Rev. William See that included a fine spring and proceeded to build the first inn on the Chicago-to-Ottawa stagecoach trail around which Plattville grew.
Then, as the year drew to a close, Mother Nature decided to give the new settlers a fantastic light show. On Nov. 13, the “Falling of the Stars” occurred, lighting the night sky with blazing meteors nearly from dusk until the following dawn, an event, that along with their arrival, was forever after remarked on as the capstone of The Year of the Early Spring.
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