Some Recollections of John V. Farwell

Some Recollections of John V. Farwell A Brief Description of His Early Life and Business Reminiscences ¥ Chicago R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company 1911 |^t;eface SOME years before John V. Farwell died he took great pleasure in using spare moments to write out for his children some reminiscences of his early life in Illinois. Such accounts of early conditions, which are in great contrast with those of any succeed- ing period, become more interesting as each decade passes by. With that idea in mind, and knowing that his grandchildren and those who come after them would especially appreciate some perma- nent record of these events, we, his children, have arranged these papers, letters, and manu- scripts, not for any general circulation, but simply for the immediate family. The reminiscences, being written with no direct purpose of publication, contain many personal references and unimportant details which would be of no great interest except to those who feel the tie of loving relationship. Nothing is more full of romance than the lives of the pioneers of the east or the west, the strong characters who with untiring vital- ity, courage, mental capacity, and moral force made a city out of a sandy waste, and wrung prosperity for themselves and their fellows out of most adverse and trying conditions. 5 preface We believe the descendants of our father would like to feel in some personal touch with this romance, and to get a slight idea of the important part played by their ancestor in helping to give to Chicago that firm founda- tion and wonderful impetus which has made her and will continue to make her one of the great cities of the world. In loving memory of our father, and speaking for all his children, I write this short preface, to indicate the character of this narrative and the purpose in printing it. John V. Farwell, Jr. ôme JSecDUectfotT0 of 3Ioi^n t^. famtll EARLY LIFE 1838, when I was thirteen years of age, INmy father concluded to leave Big Flats, New York, for a farm of his own in Ogle County, Illinois, and started there on a "prairie schooner." The first day's journey brought us to an uncle's residence. The next day was the Fourth of July, which was cele- brated with a flag floating from the canvas of our land schooner, and every boy had a Wash- ington military cocked hat — the handiwork of our mother — made from the raw material of a newspaper, which attracted the attention of everybody on the road. Our poHceman was a large spaniel dog, named "Sport," who had his decoration of stars and stripes also. He was made for business, however, as well as sport, as Mras evidenced by the fact that whenever in his presence a big dog tackled a little one, it was his invariable police regula- tion to v^hip the big dog, and then proceed on his journey as though nothing had happened. How many little dogs were indebted to him for protection, from New York to Illinois, I did not keep count, but the scene was 7 ôme MtttAltttitm$ of enacted nearly every day, to remind us that some dogs are more benevolent than some men in their care of the needy. It reminded me of a jocular friend who once said: "The more I know of dogs the less I think of men, and the more I know of men the more I think of dogs." The third day out, at dinner in our schooner, an iron-bound, hair-covered trunk was placed on the hind wheel to get it out of the way of the preparations. By some mishap it fell off the wheel, and landed its iron-bound corner on one of my bare feet, near the toes. An undergraduate of a quack advised holding it under a stream of cold spring water, which coagulated the blood into a bunch as big as a hen's egg, about as quick as a smart hen could lay it, and made an invalid of me for three months. We took a steamer at Buffalo for Detroit, and the next day after landing came to an- other uncle's, near there, for a few days* rest. When we started again the woods were full of tall bush huckleberries, which were so at- tractive as, notwithstanding my lameness, to make me anxious for a full meal of them. This excursion, together with the effort to overtake the schooner, was too much for my lame foot, and put me back for several days. Before reaching Illinois I had contracted fever and ague, but, thanks to a better doctor than my foot physician, a very bitter dose of some 8 Sôlm 15. fartoeii herb medicine relieved me of that miniature physical earthquake. Chicago was our next objective point, and it was truly "a one-horse mud town," and it did not lose that cognomen, applied to it by competitive western cities, until it had far outstripped them all in the race for pre- eminence. A most vivid recollection of Illinois is that drawn from a "prairie schooner," containing the Farwell family, July, 1838, bound for Rock River. Old Fort Dearborn— erected to fight Indians — was then one of Chicago's notable structures. The rest were mostly one and two story wood buildings. There was a population of about 2,000. The journey to Rock River was over wild prairies, with here and there a stopping place for travelers at small groves of timber, of which there were very few; so that it became a common saying, when no timber was in sight, that we were "out of sight of land." Arriving at our destination, the twenty-foot- square log house, instead of being prepared for our reception, was filled with garden truck, and our moving "prairie schooner" tabernacle had still to do duty as our habi- tation until the house was cleaned out and renovated. The next vivid picture upon the canvas of my memory is composed of two families in our log house — fourteen in number— all but ôme iHecoIlection^ of my mother and the baby sick with chills and fever, and the doctor sitting on a trunk in the center dealing out medicine. Father was com- pletely overcome with this dismal picture and proposed to mother to go back to our old home in New York State as soon as we were well enough. Mother rephed: **We have come here to make a home for ourselves and our children, and, God helping us, we will stay and accomplish our purpose." This settled it, and father said to the doctor: "All these depend on me for support, and you must cure me at once for that purpose." The necessity of the situation opened the way for the doctor and Providence to effect his cure, and only one of the fourteen found a grave before a new commodious log house was finished, so that each family had a roof of its own. In the mean time some of us were real shakers, for the fever and ague did not leave us for months. To see us shake with the chills was a moving picture not to be produced in any other way. In such a wild country, with scattered groves for hiding places and trackless prairies between, horse thieves found a paradise for their theater of operations, and improved it so energetically that to own a good horse was to invite their visits, until it became necessary to organize a vigilance committee to clear the country of this human pest. The honest farmers were no sooner organized and ready for work than the Sôljn 15. fattoell chairman of that committee was called to the door of his house in the night and shot dead. The next day the country was alive with excitement and the committee was full of deadly determination to attend to its special business. All the members of a family, one of whom had done the shooting, were arrested in the night and brought within a mile and a half of my father's house for trial and execution. It being the Saturday before a Methodist quarterly meeting, the whole neigh- borhood was gathered at the school house. Soon a rider was observed coming toward the school house at a rapid pace, and, on reaching it, he besought the people to come and rescue the Driscolls, for the vigilance committee were about to shoot them. Before he had finished his graphic appeal the crack of thirty rifles was heard, and that gang of thieves was four less in number. Six of the thirty rifles had bullets in them and the rest had blank car- tridges, so that no one of the thirty men knew positively that he had made one of the six bul- let holes that were found in the dead men. The news of this deed spread like a prairie fire, and the thieves, owning the best horses in the country, made good their escape. Thus, horse steahng became a thing of the past. Attempts had been made in the courts to convict those found with stolen horses, but in every case they could command a dozen witnesses to prove that they had innocently ôme ilecoitetion^ of bought their horses of so-and-so; therefore, they went clear. Now, an attempt was made to arraign the vigilance committee for murder, but the courts would not listen, no doubt on the basis that lynch law was the only unwritten statute available to meet the emer- gency of the times, when the frontier was filled with fugitives from justice from the older states, seeking a place where law had little terror for them, until Judge Lynch put an effectual veto on their lawlessness.

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