720
HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
authoritatively declare either one to be the best. Yet this is often claimed for Sugar Grove, and few, if any, will doubt that it is at least "as good as the best." Lying directly west of the populous and wealthy city of Aurora, whose western limit is but a mile and a half from the township line, and closely connected by highways as good as the city streets, it feels the stimulus of the wealth and culture of the metropolis, and its land values are probably the highest of any in the towns away from the river. Its northeasterly portion along Lake Run and Blackberry Creek is well covered with excellent woodland, portions of which, in the early days, was heavy timber and the remainder-about two-thirds of the township-was beautiful prairie, with a skirt of timber at the southwest bordering a branch of the Big Rock Creek. Every foot of the soil is very fertile, and well supplied with pure, excellent water; and the abundance and convenience of wood and water, together with the handsome "lay of the land," was very attractive to the pioneers seeking homes in a delightful region of absolutely unoccupied country, where they had "all out of doors" to choose from.
Very early in the spring of 1834, Asa McDole left his home in the State of New York, and started alone to explore the Far West. In Wood County, Ohio, he camped for the night with James and Isaac C. Isbell (brothers), Parmeno Isbell (a cousin), James Carman, and an elderly man named Bishop, who had just left Medina County, Ohio, for the same purpose. They had arranged for a third brother, Lyman Isbell, whose wife was Carman's sister, to join them when they had found a satisfactory location, and bring on the family, consisting of Lyman's wife and two children, Mother Isbell and her daughter Miranda. Of course McDole joined them. They had two ox-teams, some axes and a few implements, a little food, blankets, etc., and each man had a flint-lock musket. The muskets were as serviceable for "flashing powder in the pan" and so starting a fire-for matches were scarce, if not unknown, in those days-as they were for shooting game. The Isbells also had four cows. This was April 27. Journeying westward they crossed the Fox River at Oswego, where there was one cabin on each side of the river, and thence pushed on nearly northward across the trackless country, until on the 10th of May, when, having camped in a most beautiful grove of maple trees near
a pleasant stream, they made up their minds that nothing more desirable could be found. They saw plain indications that the Indians had been accustomed to making sugar from these trees, and here they found an abandoned Indian tepee, or shack, which they used while building, for immediate shelter, the first cabin erected in the township. Next they constructed for the expected family quite a commodious and comfortable log house farther north and west, near the line of Sections 10 and 9. Bach was made entirely of wood "from the tree," and with very few and simple tools. In July Lyman arrived with the families, driving the first horse team that was brought into the county. They marked a number of choice claims, and were doubtless the only whites west of the river until Joseph Ingham came in the following winter, and settled lower on the Blackberry below its junction with Lake Run. The next spring his son Cyrus Ingham came with his father's family. These were Oneida County, New York, people of the best quality. Joseph's brother, Samuel Ingham, came four years later with his excellent family, and took up a large tract of land. The brothers, with their descendants, have always been active promoters of all worthy enterprises, have filled many public positions, and maintained high standing and wide acquaintance throughout the county. Harry White, Asa and Rodney McDole, William A. Tanner and Theophilus Wilson-names as familiar as household words in the county-came also in 1835, but Rodney McDole, after locating his claim, returned to Me-nard County for the bride he had married in January of that year. He came back in the spring of 1836, and lived to be the oldest settler in the township. In 1833 or '34 he carried a chain for "A. Lincoln, surveyor," in Sanga-mon County, it is said, and over twenty years later the great President was glad to meet and greet his former chainman and friend.
A number of other settlers came in that season, and, in the spring of 1836, Silas Reynolds, Lorin Inman, Samuel Taylor, Silas Gardner, Nathan H. Palmer, Samuel Cogswell, Isaac Gates, Joseph Bishop and Silas Leonard were located here. James Judd and H. B. Dinsmore also came in this fall. The next year (1837) Ira H. Fitch and family, including his parents, took up a claim that became a part of Section 32, and opened a blacksmith shop in connection with his farm. The hamlet called Jericho
