Lest we forget the fortitude, the fearless courage, the determination, the frugal living, the hard work with none of the facilities that are so abundant today, this history has been written as a record of the success of those who left the comforts of civilization in the East and came west to a wild country, and of those who came to America talking a strange language, having very little equipment but bare hands and willing hearts, to wrest from a wilderness or an uncultivated country a living for a large family in a land where they could enjoy freedom from oppression and from pursuit.

They came with sons in their teens who grasped the plow of good government, and, having done a masterful work in the township, came to the new station when the railroad arrived, and repeated their success in the town government and experiences in getting up the country school, by organizing and establishing a new village and its government.

They builded better than they knew. Today we are enjoying his American heritage. This record may keep the picture before us that we may not take for granted the blessings we enjoy today.

Many interesting and important events and experiences of the past are slipping into oblivion. May these recordings preserve faithful memory of what our forebears, these pioneers, did for us.

In some places in this book the account may be quite in detail perhaps, but many questions have been asked by students at school, or by some who find it hard to realize how far we have come in a hundred and twenty-five years. For years I have saved data and kept a card index file of historic items, but herein have studiously avoided anything that might be derogatory or embarrassing to anyone. No attempt is here made to write a biography of our people, for due credit is hard to give. Although great diligence has been exercised to avoid slights or oversight, some may be discovered.

I have talked with many of our early people, with a number of persons who were here when this was but a prairie of grass; and so often with my grandfather, M.B. McIntosh, who was one of he organizers and second President of the village after it was chartered. My gratitude to them and to all.

1962 Arnett C. Lines (1882-1970)

HISTORICAL LOCATION

The first permanent settlers arrived in the land we now speak of as the Barrington area in 1834. The story of Barrington might well start there, but it seems proper to establish our chain of title. By what countries and states has the soil of Barrington been claimed? Under what flags?

In 1492 Spain claimed the Western Hemisphere by virtue of Columbus' discovery. Long before Columbus, the white man had visited our northeastern shores, according to history and legend, but accounts are vague and indefinite.

In 1498, Cabot's discovery, England claimed the continent of America.

In 1541 Barrington land was under the Spanish flag. DeSota had discovered the Mississippi river and claimed the land that it drained for Florida.

In 1606 this land was claimed by Virginia, under the British flag, and in 1629 by the Massachusetts Bay colony through consolidation with the Plymouth colony of Virginia.

In 1670 France established its claim, in the name of "New France," to Canada and all lands in the Northwest Lakes Regon through treaty with the Indians. Nicolett and Alouez came down the Fox river of Wisconsin, crossed inland, and reached the Mississippi.

In 1673, still under the French flag, Marquette and Joliet explored the Mississippi and Illinois river valleys, to be followed by LaSalle five years later.

In 1682 LaSalle reached the mouth of the Mississippi and claimed all lands drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries from the Gulf to New France, calling the country Louisiana.

In 1763 Great Britain reestablished its claim by the treaty of Paris, ending the French and Indian War. In 1778 George Rogers Clark captured Fort Chartres, established by the French in 1719 near the present Prairie du Rocher, and Illinois was organized as a county of Virginia.

In 1784 Virginia relinquished its claim on Illinois to the United States, followed by Massachusetts in 1785 and Connecticut in 1786.

In 1787 the Northwest Territory was organized to include all lands northwest of the Ohio river.

In 1800 Indiana Territory, including Illinois, organized by Congressional action. William Henry-Harrison was Governor.

In 1809 Illinois Territory was established, to include the present state of Wisconsin, with Kaskaskia as the territorial capital and Ninian Edwards as Governor.

In 1818 Illinois was admitted as the twenty-first state. Its north boundary line, first drawn along the south shore of Lake Michigan, was fixed at latitude 42 degrees, 30 minutes north. Nathaniel Pope, territorial representative, had persuaded Congress to apportion to the new state a part of Lake Michigan, shown on earlier maps as Lake Illinois. State capital at Kaskaskia, the legislature meeting there in 1818 and 1819. In 1820 the state capital was moved to Vandalia, and in 1839 the seat of government was removed to Springfield.

The "Illinois Herald," first newspaper in Illinois, was published by Matthew Duncan at Kaskaskia in 1814.

Although slavery was forbidden in the Northwest Territory by the Great Ordinance of 1787, slaves were still advertised for sale in Illinois in 1816.

Illinois was now a state. But yet to be extinguished were the titles of the original proprietors of the soil the American Indian.

WHEN THE INDIANS WERE HERE

Having always understood that the Indians around here were the Pottawatomies, and then hearing that there were Fox Indians here, I did extensive research; I found no authentic accounts of the Fox in this region. A history of Kane County in the Newberry Library tells of the Pattawatomies and Mascoutins in the neighborhood of this section of the Fox River. When some books speak of other tribes along Fox river, reference may be to the Wisconsin Fox, flowing into Green Bay.

Pottawatomie means "the people of the place of fire." The Pottawatomies, the Ottawas, and the Chippewas were once all one tribe. Some were called the Prairie Pottawatomies and the Mascoutins were a band of that tribe, according to William Duncan Strong. He quotes DeGannes, who for a time lived among the Indians. Strong says these Indians were docile, affectionate, and friendly to the French but not to the English. He describes them as idolaters, yet with a feeling for a more personal God; and very fettish. They were polygamists, Strong says, and named their children after natural phenomena. There were 23 clans of Prairie Pottawatomies in male descent. They raised corn, for Illinois soil was suited to the crop. Their tepees were usually round and of birch bark or buffalo hides. Larger tepees were rectangular, with mats for a roof. They used birch bark canoes and dugouts, and the plains Indians used many made from hides stretched over frames.

In 1883 at the close of the Blackhawk War, a grand council of chiefs and headmen took place in Chicago and all lands east of the Winnebago River were ceded to the United States. In 1835 the Pottawatomies came again and got their annuities and left the region. In 1918 there were still in the United States, according to the census, 3731 Pottawatomies.

An old map of 1804 in the Chicago Public Library (917.731 IN2) by Albert Scharf shows that Algonquin Road, Rand Road, Higgins Road, Grand Avenue, Lake Street (Chicago Elgin, Rockford Trail), St. Charles Road, Warrenville Road, Aurora Road, Plainfield Road, Barry Point, Portage (from Indian Village and chipping station on east bank of Des Plaines River at Lyons) northeast, Archer Avenue, Vincennes Avenue, Green Bay Road, and Little Fort Road were all Indian Trails. Lake Street out of Chicago was marked "Mound Builders Trail." Indian Villages were in Lincoln Park, Harlem, Blue Island, at 95th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, and in the north end of Des Plaines. There is a mound marked on the map a little way southwest of Bartlett. Others at Morton, Kennicott, one northwest of Oak Park, East of Lyons, Maywood, Glen Ellyn, Glen View, Evanston, Naperville, west side of Park Ridge and the site across the river from Lyons; all were Indian Villages. Signal Stations were in Proviso southwest of Maywood, West Chicago, Norwood Park, Lyons, Bonaparte, Addison and in Chicago north of the river. Chipping stations, where flint was chipped for arrowheads, and camps were all along the north shore to Wilmette as well as at Lyons on the east bank of the Des Plaines river. All of which seems to have little to do with Barrington, except for the interest in Indians in general and that we hereabouts are on the trail between what later became the route from Chicago to Fox river and the lake region north and northwest of us.

I have heard "Deacon" Joseph Whitney of Lake Zurich, and others, tell of the early days when folks awoke in the morning to find Indians peering through their windows. "Mother knew what they wanted. She baked a batch of johnny-cake (corn bread) for them and they went away happy." There was a tale of an Indian massacre at Buehler's Curve in the Lake Zurich road, but I never had it confirmed. Henry L. Elfrink told of stories of an Indian burying ground on the left of the road entering Deer Grove from the viaduct, where that road crosses the creek at the southwest corner of Ela's Flat. He said that Indian relics were often picked up there in early days. Many arrowheads were picked up on the William Sandman farm (now Biltmore Country Club) and other farms in the vicinity and later sold to A.W. Meyer, a Barrington merchant, who mounted them on black velvet in frames. Some of Meyer's exhibits were presented to the Barrington public schools after his death.

What was the situation before our early settlers arrived? Father Marquette and Joliet came through here in 1673 and found in this general area the Pottawatomies, Ottawas and Chippewas. The Pottawatomies were the inhabitants of this place later called Cook County. Father Francois Pinney in 1696 founded a French Jesuit Mission at or near Gross Point west of Wilmette at the headwaters of the North Branch of the Chicago river overlooking Skokie Marsh which the Indians called "Quiet Lake." It was named the Mission of the Guardian Angel for it stood at the portage from the North Branch to the Des Plaines Rivers. A history of the Cook County Forest Preserve says that there was a long period when the Indians were not so friendly with the French, possibly dependent on which nation secured them as an ally in their European wars that spread to colonial America; and that this mission was abandoned by the French in 1699 as well as the other portages in the Checaugau area. The Pottawatomies established a chain of villages and forts connecting their many trails. At the close of the Seven Years War between England and France, the French gave up all territory west to the Mississippi River.

In all of these white men's wars, where the Indian was always brought into another man's war, there were two outstanding white men: Alex Robinson (Chee-chupin-quay) and Billy Caldwell (Sauganash). Because of them the Pottawatomies became more civilized, embraced religion, and took more kindly to agriculture instead of the chase. After the successful work of George Rogers Clark in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan up to Detroit, the British by the Treaty of 1783 gave up to the United States this territory acquired from the French north to the Great Lakes. Anthony Wayne, after his victory over the Indians at Fallen Timbers in 1794, got from them by a treaty at Greenville a tract of six square miles at the mouth of the Chicago river, and some 15 other tracts, but these were never surveyed. The Indian Boundary Line (Rogers Avenue) fixed definitely the boundary of the Redman's territory in 1816. Fort Dearborn had fallen and the Eighteenth Street Massacre had taken place, with the household of John Kinzie escaping to St. Joseph, Michigan, by Chee-chupin-quay and Sauganash's ever kindly protection of the whites. Billy Caldwell (Sauganash) was the son of Col. Caldwell, a British officer of Irish birth. The Forest Preserve history says that he was educated by the Jesuit Fathers at Detroit, married an Indian girl, spoke English, French and a dozen Indian languages and was an ally of Tecumseh. He lived for years north of the village of Chicago at State Street and Chicago Avenue in a house built for him by the United States Government; he had an annuity of $400 and by the Treaty of 1833 the U.S. gave him a further award of $5,000. His friendship for the white man saved many. He was an accredited Chicago Justice of the Peace, although he never became a citizen, one historian says. The Caldwell Reservation was on the Chicago River between Bryn Mawr and Kenilworth Avenues as "fixed under the original grant by President Tyler Dec. 28, 1843." "He left Cook County with his people in 1836 for Council Bluffs, Iowa, thus accomplishing the Indian removal in which the law and the soldiers had failed. Alex Robinson (Chee-chu-pin-quay) owned the reservation on both sides of the Des Plaines River between Addison and Foster. He lived there until his death in 1872. His age was reputed to be anywhere from 85 to 110 years. He was a citizen, a voter, and a taxpayer. He was married to an Indian squaw by Justice of the Peace John Kinzie. He and Shabona kept the Winnebagoes from getting the Pottawatomies and the Sauks to help them in a final war against Chicago. The Indians met on Ela's Flat in Deer Grove in the Big Foot Camp in 1827. Here Alex Robinson argued for three days and averted the Winnebagoes' wish for more trouble in this area. Robinson is buried on the east side of the Des Plaines River just north of Irving Park road.

After this settlement on Ela's Flat of Indian troubles and the big treaty of 1833, the first white settlers thought it safe to venture farther inland, locating claims around here. Indian history tells us that the last of the Indians left this locality in 1835 and 1836. In 1834 when the first white settlers came into this township they found a few hundred hereabouts. They had remained several years to collect their government annuities.

INDIAN DEFEATS AND TREATIES

1763 -- Pontiac defeated. France gave up Canada to England.
1790 -- Treaty with the Indians at Greenville, Ohio. Pottawatomies hereafter were more friendly with the white people.
1794 -- In August Little Turtle was defeated by Anthony Wayne. Six square miles at the mouth of the Chicago river granted the whites but never recorded. More settlers came into the Chicago a area.
1806 -- Tecumseh and Prophet tried to form a confederation of Indians farther South. Winnebagoes and Pottawatomies refused.
1803 -- Fort Dearborn built.
1811 -- Prophet, in Tecumseh's absence, began war and was defeated by William Henry Harrison.
1812 -- Fort Dearborn fell.
1813 -- Tecumseh defeated by Gen. William Henry Harrison.
1823 -- Fort Dearborn evacuated till 1828 and withdrawn in 1831.
1827 -- Treaty or agreement after three day council on Ela Flat in Deer Grove wherein Pottawatomies of this region refused to join the Winnebagoes in a raid on Chicago.
1832 -- Fort Dearborn regarrisoned because of Blackhawk War. Battle of Bad Axe on Mississippi river in Wisconsin ended the war. Chief Blackhawk, a Sac Indian pursued by the Winnebagoes who began to fear the power of the Whites, and took him captive to Gen. Longstreet at Jefferson Barracks where a treaty was concluded. He was later taken to Washington, D.C., but was returned to his people. Indian prisoners were set free by President Jackson in 1833. Blackhawk died Oct. 3, 1840. He was said to be 80 years old.
1816 -- By treaty in St. Louis, tract 10 miles north and 10 miles south of Chicago River ceded by Indians to United States.
1829 -- By Treaty of Prairie du Chien (Sept. 29) Chippewas, Ottawas and Pottowatomies released to U.S. all lands in Northwestern Illinois.
1832 -- By Treaty at Fort Armstrong (Sept. 15) the Winnebagoes gave up to U.S. all lands south and east of the Wisconsin river and the Fox river which flows into Green Bay, Wis.
1833 -- At a treaty (Sept. 26) ending the Black Hawk War, the Chippewas, Ottawas and Pottawatomies ceded to the U.S. all lands along the west shore of Lake Michigan and west to area ceded by Winnebagoes in 1832 and north to area ceded to U.S. by Menominees and south to area ceded by treaty at Prairie du Chien -- about 5,000,000 acres. All title by Sacs, Fox, Winnebagoes, Chippewas, Ottawas and Pottawatomies east of Mississipi River was killed. $100,000 annuities and grants paid to Pottawatomies, Ottawas and Chippewas after 1833, which they collected in the next two years. Robinson remained and helped build Chicago; Caldwell stayed only until 1836.

IN WHAT COUNTIES

In the half century between the erection of Northwest Territory and the final drawing of county lines, Barrington area was under the rule of ten county governments. In chronological order, they were:

1790, Knox County, a part of Northwest Territory.
1801, St. Clair County, Indiana Territory.
1812, Madison County, in Illinois Territory.
1814, Edwards County, Illinois Territory.
1816, Crawford County, still Illinois Territory.
1819, Clark County, State of Illinois.
1821, Pike County.
1823, Fulton County.
1825, Putnam County, geographically, with the seat of government in Peoria County.*
1831, Cook County erected, to include all that is now Will, DuPage, Lake, and part of McHenry counties.
1836, McHenry County formed, embracing what is now McHenry and Lake counties.
1839, Lake County set off from McHenry.

Will County was erected in 1836 and DuPage county in 1839, reducing Cook county to its present size.

*Putnam county was established January 13, 1825, to include all territory lying north of the Illinois and Kankakee rivers. Peoria County was created, in its present size, on the same day. Putnam County failed to organize for several years and the seat of government for the Barrington area was in Peoria County until Cook county was created.

It is an interesting but little known fact that but for the failure of another county to organize, Barrington township and its neighbors, Palatine, Wheeling, Hanover, Schaumburg and Elk Grove, might today be in Michigan county. Created by legislative act March 2, 1837, Michigan county was to contain, besides the present territory of DuPage county, all that part of Cook county lying between the DuPage county line and the south boundaries of Lake and McHenry counties. It was one of 13 "lost" counties that failed to take advantage of their enabling acts.

Cook County was named for Daniel P. Cook, first Attorney General of the State and Representative in Congress 1819 to 1826.

Kane County was named for Elias Kent Kane, Territorial Judge, member of the Constitutional Convention of 1818, first Illinois Secretary of State, and United States Senator.

McHenry County was named for Col. William McHenry, a soldier in the War of 1812 and in the Blackhawk War, Representative in the 1st, 4th, 5th and 9th General Assemblies and Senator in the 6th.

Lake County was so named because of the many lakes within its borders.

LAND SURVEY TOWNSHIPS

Congress made provision in 1785 for a system of survey for the purpose of land locations and descriptions. The unit is a topographical township of 36 square miles, six miles square, counted as "townships" north or south from a "base" line and as "ranges" east or west from a "principal meridian."

Barrington township, six miles square, overlies Township 42 North, Range 9 East of the 3rd Principal Meridian.

Cuba township, four miles east and west and six miles north and south, overlies the east four miles of Township 43 North, Range 9 East of the 3rd Principal Meridian.

The 1st Principal Meridian is the east boundary line of Indiana; the 2nd P.M. is 18 miles west of Indianapolis; the 3rd P.M. runs north from the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers at Cario through Centralia and Rockford. The Base line runs about three miles south of Centralia and is the dividing line between Marion county, north of the line, and Jefferson on its south side.

The 36 square miles in these survey townships, often called Congressional townships, were numbered consecutively, back and forth beginning at the northeast corner. They were later designated as sections and each section was laid off in quarters, and these quarter sections again quartered, making it an easy matter to definitely fix the location of each 40-acre tract of land.

The Ordinance establishing the survey ordered that section 16 in each township should be reserved for school purposes.

Surveys of Government Townships 42 and 43, Range 9, more frequently referred to now as Barrington and Cuba townships, were not completed until 1839. It was 1840 before the early settlers who had located in these townships could file their claims.

SETTLEMENT AROUND BARRINGTON CENTER

After the Indian powwow on Ela's Flat in Deer Grove, and the Treaty of 1833 by which the Pottawatomies relinquished their claims, the rugged pioneers began coming into these unsettled regions in a wider circle around Chicago.

The news spread back East that good new and cheap land was available and settlers began to come.

The first white men known to have settled in Barrington township were Jesse F. Miller and Williarn Van Orsdal, who arrived in 1834, before the three year period which had been given the Indians to vacate the region, and before the land surveys.

The first settlers hereabouts either walked overland from Chicago, driving a cow or an ox team, or came in from the Fox river. Rivers and lakes were the usual way of travel. Fox river towns were begun before Barrington, and some settlers gradually worked their way from the river. Thus pushing back from Adams (now Dundee) and from Elgin, a group from Berkshire County, Massachusetts, and others from New York State settled around the area that was to become known as Barrington Center, that "centered" both ways from the present Sutton road and from Algonquin and Higgins roads. Their early market was Dundee on the river. These Yankees who settled the center and west portions of the township were a vigorous, industrious and courageous people. Their sons were young, mostly in their teens, and were the ones who organized the government of the township, who grew up, with the government of the township, who grew up with the township and the area, who developed it and were its officials, and who, with those from Deer Grove area and some from Cuba township became the backbone of the town and village of Barrington.

Compiled from personal biographies, from their own statements, from the works of earlier historians, and from old newspaper articles, here follows a listing of some of our pioneers, the years of arrival, the section on which they settled, and, where known, from whence they came, and their ages:

First settlers, as noted above, were Jesse F. Miller, who came from Steuben County, N.Y., and William Van Orsdal, both settling on Sec. 16 in 1834 and later moving to Sec. 17 when they found they were on the school section.

The next year found Henry Clawson on Sec. 2; Benjamin Irick, who was 42, on Sec. 20; and Phillip Hawley Sr. from Amherst, Mass., on Sec. 12.

In 1836 Alex H. McClure, 31, came from Broome county, N.Y., to Sec. 1, John McKnight to Sec. 17 and Sam Wardlow to Sec. 29.

The year 1837 saw a dozen arrivals. A.C. Bucklin from South Adams in Berkshire county, Mass., came with his mother to Sec. 19; E.N. Miller, 21, and Jesse M. Miller from Steuben county, N.Y., to Sec. 16, subsequently taking claims in Secs. 24 and 25; William H. Otis was 30 when he came from Ellisburg, N.Y., to settle on Sec. 15; Martin Freeman was on Sec. 2 and Gilbert A. Applebee and Benjamin Richardson, 49, or Sec. 5; Chas. D. Miller staked a claim on Sec. 16; others coming that year included Dr. Hall, Thomas Perkins, John Giddings and Horace Rosenkranz.

William C. Waterman came from North Adams, Berkshire county, Mass., in 1838, when he was 30, but went back, returning when he was 39; he owned land in Secs. 22, 26 and 27. Also coming from North Adams in 1838 were Homer Willmarth, 31, and his son, Galusha, to Sec. 17. Other arrivals that year were L.O.E. Manning and George S. Browning, Sec. 19; Henry Smith, Sec. 8; William B. Freeman, Sec. 5, and Alvah Miller and sons on Sec. 16.

Shubuel W. Kingsley, 22, came from North Adams to Sec. 20 in 1840; Lyman Dunklee, 34, from Windham county, Vt., to Sec. 28, and Lysander Beverly, 21, to Sec. 30.

Henry Jeneks, 45, and his sons, D.R. and Dan S., 14 and 16 years old, came from North Adams, Berkshire county, Mass., in 1841; Ed. G. Sabin from Lake county, Ohio; J.C. Allen and Phillip N. Gould to Sec. 21 and Nelson Messer and Daniel Jr. to Sec. 28.

Geo. T. Waterman, 46, and his son, Geo. W., 16, from North Adams, Berkshire county, settled on Sec. 21 in 1842 and on the same section Hezakiah Kingsley, 46, and Jerome W., 21, also from Berkshire county; John W. Seymour came from Steuben county, N.Y., that year.

S.W. Slade, his wife and sons Chas. F. and Geo. E., came from Cheshire, Berkshire county to Sec. 20 in 1843, and Charles Church, 46, and sons settled on Sec. 23; William DeVol arrived the same year.

John Hendrickson, 47, and son, DeSalva, came from Oswego county, N.Y., in 1844, to Sec. 14; D.N. Haven, 21, from Jefferson county, N.Y., to Sec. 23, and George Prouty 24, from Stamford, Vt., to Sec. 27. Asa T. Beverly was born here that year.

Lambert Meiners came from Germany in 1849 and Bernhard H. Landwer and his brother, Lambert, and son, Gerhart H. arrived from Germany to settle on Sec. 1. Others who came about this time were George W. and Coleman Robinson, Ira J. Chase and Warren Hough.

Zebina Hawley, 55, and Austin Hawley came from Amherst, Mass., to County Line road in 1854 or 1855.

COMING INTO CUBA TOWNSHIP

First settler in Cuba township and probably in the Fox Valley of Lake county was Amos Flint, who came with his father in 1834 to build a cabin on section 10 where the creek that takes his name empties into the Fox. Joseph Flint returned to the East. The log cabin, which was jointly occupied by Amos Flint, an aunt, Mrs. Grace Flint, and V.H. Freeman and family, burned to the ground and the occupants suffered great hardship that winter, Charles A. Partridge, an early editor of the Waukegan Gazette once wrote.

John K. Bennett came to Sec. 12 in 1837. Other early settlers were Robert Conmee on Sec. 1; Lewis H. Bute from Summit, N.Y., on 27; Eli and Oscar Bute; Jared Comstock and George H. from Vermont on 33; Philetus Beverly, Francis Kelsey, Thomas W. White, Joshua Streator Harnden, Noble R.Hayes, John J. Bullock, Innis Hollister, and E. Nelson.

Martin Freeman came from Vermont and settled on Sec. 33 in 1841; Robert Bennett to 13 in 1842; Chester and Wallace Bennett; Olcott A. White on 23 in 1844. That year also saw the arrival from England of Abraham Howarth and William H.

John Lewis Brooks visited the township in 1837, returned to New York and came back an ordained Baptist minister in 1845, taking up land near the center of the township. He sold a few years later and bought a farm at what is now Tower Lakes. He was an early preacher at the South Barrington Church and was instrumental in building the Baptist Church in Wauconda.

EARLY SETTLERS IN ELA

George Ela came to Ela township in 1835, settling on Sec. 33 at Deer Grove, and taking up a claim also in Palatine township. He had the first post office, was elected to the Legislature in 1846, and kept a store, which he moved to Barrington when the railroad came. Ela township was named for him. Abraham Vanderwerker settled on Sec. 34, A. Russell On 10. John Robertson Sr. first took up land in Sec. 20. Leonard Loomis was on Sec. 25. Erastus Houghton built the Yankee Tavern at the cross roads in See. 3 in 1836. Seth Paine bought a claim that year and came there with his wife to live in 1841. John D. Huntington came to Sec. 4 in 1842.

M.A. Brockway, father of H.K. Brockway, Barrington postmaster, and L.O. Brockway, for years Lake County Recorder, was on Sec. 25. In a sketch of Ela township written some 50 years ago, L.O. Brockway lists among early residents the following: Dennis Putnam, L. Whitney, Stebbins A. Ford, Zabina Ford, Levi Price, Henry Pepper, George Spunner, Frederick Berghorn, and I. Willard Fox.

ALONG ELA ROAD

Settling along Ela road or adjacent to it in Palatine township were Edward and Lester Castle, John Catlow from England, John Page, James Creet, Uriah Stott, Ezekiel Cady, William Freeman, and the four Elfrink brothers. Also John Kitson, John Page, Peter Davidson's father, Lambert Listhartke, Luther Pinney and Mr. Elvidge and Mr. Vander Bogart. George Ela had a claim in Sec. 4 and John Robertson in Sec. 5.

Among those who settled along Ela road north of the county line in early days were Willard Stevens, who platted the early village north of the tracks in 1854 and called it Cuba, and Reuben Pomeroy, who founded the Pomeroy clan.

THE EAST TO WEST TREK

Some of our pioneers came west by way of the Erie Canal, opened in 1825, to the Great Lakes and then by water to Chicago, where it was the custom of business men, to come down to the river and welcome them. Many came overland by the emigrant wagon or the famous Conestoga wagon. Linus Lines Senior came in such a wagon in 1848; it had a stove in it, complete with stovepipe. Many walked out from Chicago; one man drove a cow along with him. A man and his wife walked to Rand (now Des Plaines) where they were urged to stay overnight, but they insisted on going on across the prairies, with but few landmarks, till they came to their friends or relatives in the Barrington area.

Folks came from Europe many around here from Germany, by sailing ship, a journey which often took as much as six weeks. Some were on the water twelve weeks. Two of our pioneers were shipwrecked and floated on a raft at sea, living on coconuts, until they touched land at New Orleans.

Those early settlers were industrious. Their sturdy sons in their teens accepted the challenge of new, raw, uncultivated land in an unpopulated country. Some of them were pioneers in business in the village later on, but first were builders of the new township.

They were a closely knit group, bound by ties of blood and marriage. They reared large families, their sons and daughters married, and many family names are still represented in the village in third and fourth generations:

Col. Wm. Waterman married Sarah Bucklin; Julia S. Jencks married A.C. Bucklin of North Adams. Dan Jencks of South Adams married Nancy E. Waterman, and later, Sophia Rawley. Henry T. Jencks married Amelia Robinson of the Barrington Center Robinsons.

Homer Willmarth of North Adams, was a cousin to Wm.G. Waterman, son of Col. Wm. Waterman,, and married Mary A. Wells, a sister of Johanna Wells, who married Hezakiah Kingsley, father of Jerome W. Kingsley, which made him and Luke Willmarth cousins. Waity Waterman married Shubuel Willmarth Kingsley of North Adams; Ann Waterman married Charles B. Hawley; Susan Waterman of North Adams married Henry Hawley; Eliza Waterman married a Sabin; George W. Waterman married Alvira Applebee, and after her death married her sister, Rhoda Ann, whose first husband was David R. Richardson. (They were the parents of Dr. D.H. Richardson, well known Barrington physician.)

Gilbert A. Applebee had nine daughters. Six, besides Alvira and Rhoda Ann, married men of the Barrington area: Polly married Lewis H. Bute; Almira married Ed Hawley of Amherst, Mass. (They were the parents of Hylan Hawley); Clarinda married Jerome W. Kingsley; Eliza married Ansel K. Townsend; Jane married George W. Robinson.

Nancy Hawley married Jared Comstock.

All of these men and women lived in Barrington township in the early days, and all came from Berkhire county, Massachusetts, except Comstock, Applebee, Richardson and Bute. The Hawleys were from the adjoining county.

TOWNSHIPS ARE ORGANIZED

Walking out Higgins Road or Algonquin Trail, land seekers came to a grove called Miller's Grove, so named because a number of Miller families had settled there, living along what in later years was to be known as Sutton Road. They were in Congressional Township 42 North, Range 9 East.

By 1840 Cook county had a population of more than 10,000 and this township, had a population of 292. The school sections were sold that year and the settlers held a meeting at the Wm. Otis house to organize a township school system. The Otis home was at the Southeast corner of the Freeport (Algonquin) Road and Bartlett Road, in the original house which stood just west of new brick house built in 1866, which is still standing.

Under authority of the constitution of 1848 the General Assembly had provided for township organization within counties to give the people a higher degree of local self government. Cook and Lake counties with most counties of the state, had voted for township organization in November, 1849. It was to go into force on the first Tuesday in April, 1850. As the law provided, three commissioners were appointed to divide the county into towns corresponding, as nearly as possible, to the lines of the Congressional townships. Towns were to be named in accordance with local preference.

The minutes of that first town meeting, as written in the original minute book, read as follows:

"In accordance with an Act of the Legislature of the State of Illinois ... and agreeable to a notice previously posted up by the Sheriff of the County of Cook, the inhabitants of the Town of Barrington met at the school house at the south end of Millers Grove, on Tuesday, the Second day of April, one thousand eight hundred and fifty, for the purpose of holding their first Town. Meeting, and on being called to order made choice of William Adams for moderator and Jerome W. Kingsley for clerk for the day, and proceeded to cast their votes for the several various officers for the ensuing year."

All the old timers this author has talked with agree the name Barrington was taken from Great Barrington, in Berkshire county, Mass. I never learned of any settlers coming here from Great Barrington. But many did come from Berkshire county the Bucklin family from South Adams; the Waterman, Willmarth, Kingsley, Jencks and Cowdin families from North Adams, and the Slade family from elsewhere in same county. (George Waterman's house in North Adams, was moved to make way for the end of the Hoosack Tunnel.) Many of our influential pioneers settling around "Barrington Center" were from North Adams. They may have wanted to use the name Adams, which had been home to them but that was the name for a part of what is now the neighboring village of Dundee. Another town back in Berkshire county, Massachusetts, was Great Barrington, (surveyed in the middle 1700s), and their second choice was Barrington, named after Lord Barrington of England, the first of that peerage. (When Great Barrington was named the Massachusetts-Rhode Island boundary line was being legally determined by a survey based on old English Colonial land grants. If the line went too far south the several Barringtons in Rhode Island would have been in Massachusetts. So the Berkshire county town was called Great Barrington.)

The officers elected at that first town meeting were: William Devol, supervisor; Alvah Miller, town clerk; Edward Hawley, assessor; Henry M. Campbell, C.I. Wilsie, Philip N. Gould, commissioners of highways; Homer Wilmarth, William Devol, justices of the peace; William Hitchcock, Aaron Billings, constables; Graves Ward, collector; Hezekiah Kingsley, overseer of the poor.

The next town meeting was at the school house in Miller's Grove, but by 1854 we find the annual meeting place moved to the Wm. Otis home, and there it apparently remained until 1866, when it was held in the school house in District 3. At that meeting it was voted to hold the next town meeting, in Sinnot's hall in the "village of Barrington Station." Thus did the village become the seat of town government.