Fence Laws of Frontier Illinois.

In the frontier days of farming in Illinois, there was a huge debate amongst the farmers about fencing. Illinois was a closed grazing state so fences were required and those "cowcatchers" on old locomotives weren't just decorative.

John Bull Locomotive with a cowcatcher.

Illinois settlers needed to keep their livestock away from their crops and the railroad tracks. On the prairie, trees were scarce and wood was a precious commodity. Building fencing to contain cattle was an expensive proposition. Split rail fences were expensive, $500 ($12,000 today) per mile. A prairie fire would easily destroy the costly fencing, sending all a farmer’s hard work and money up in smoke. Wire fencing at the time was brittle, not galvanized, causing the wire to rust and easily break. In the early 1840’s, a movement to use these thorny trees as fencing began. Illinois was the first of the prairie states that introduced the Osage orange as a living fence. Young trees and new growth on trees have sharp ½ to 1 inch thorns. Thorns, its dense growth when pruned, and its ability to survive extreme conditions are the reasons this tree came to the prairie.

An example of the Osage Orange or hedge apple tree fencing.

In fact, one of the relatively few requirements for the new "township" system of government enabled by the Illinois Property Line and Fence Laws [1] in the 1848 Illinois Constitution was the requirement that Townships appoint Fence Inspectors. 

By the 1850s there was widespread acceptance of the thorny and dense-growing Osage orange (Maclura pomifera) or "hedge apple." 

A dead hedge fence. Note the trained trunks to keep the growth close to the ground.

Although economic and effective barbed wire had largely taken over by the 1880s, many of the hedge apple fences were used and maintained into the 1940s, Among the 400 parcels totaling over 40,000 acres of agricultural land in Will County that were purchased by the Army in 1940 for the Joliet Arsenal, hedge fences, often allowed to have grown into trees, were everywhere.

Osage hedges on both sides of an old farm road that were neglected and had grown into trees.

Surely some diligent nineteenth-century farmer lost one of his Osage bushes and took the two or three years to train the hinge cut into something that covered the gap in his fence. One of the amazing things that still stand as subtle testimony to life frontier Illinois so long ago.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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[1] Illinois Property Line and Fence Laws. A summary of key Illinois laws relevant to the property line and fence disputes.

Lawful Fence - IL ST CH 765 § 130/2

• Must be 4.5 feet high.
• In good repair.
• Constructed from rails, timber boards, stone, hedges, barb wire, woven wire or whatever the fence viewers of the town or precinct state is appropriate.
• It must be sufficient to prevent cattle, horses, sheep, hogs and other stock from getting on the adjoining lands of another.

Responsibility to Maintain a Division Fence - IL ST CH 765 § 130/3

• A division fence is one separating the land of 2 or more persons.
• Each person must make and maintain a "just portion" of the fence.
• A hedge fence cannot be more than 5 feet high.

Fence Dispute Settlement - IL ST CH 765 § 130/7

• Two official Fence Viewers will define the portion of the fence to be built or maintained by each.
• In counties under township organization, the board of trustees will serve as fence viewers in their respective towns.
• In counties not under township organization the presiding officer of the county board, three fence viewers in each precinct.

Wrongful Tree Trimming Act - IL ST CH 740 § 185/2

• It is a violation to cut or cause to be cut any tree unless you have full legal title.
• Violators of the act will be liable for three times the value of the tree.
• Utility providers have a right to cut any tree that interferes with service.

The History of the Smith Stained Glass Museum at Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois, from 2000-2014.

The Smith Stained Glass Museum opened in February of 2000 and is the first museum in the United States dedicated solely to stained glass windows. The exhibit opened under a 10-year art loan agreement signed in 1997 and then was extended with a series of one-year agreements.

A detailed view of the Field of Lilies (c.1910) window, one of 18 windows unveiled at the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows at Navy Pier which including 15 windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

The collection was donated by Maureen Dwyer Smith and Edward Byron Smith Jr., whose family founded Illinois Tool Works and Northern Trust.

Museum Visit - Phillip McCullough, of Mississippi, visits the Smith Museum of Stained Glass at Navy Pier.

The exhibit was open year round and was free to all Navy Pier visitors and had 143 stained glass panels/windows on display featuring both secular and religious art. The windows were divided into four categories: Victorian, Prairie, Modern, and Contemporary. Local, national, and international artists designed the windows, including Louis Comfort Tiffany, John LaFarge, Ed Paschke and Roger Brown.

Tiffany Windows - from left: Pair of Poppies (c.1890) and Field of Lilies (c.1910).

Debbie Carithers, of Table Grove, Illinois, looks at Pair of Poppies (c.1890) during an unveiling of 18 new pieces at the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows at Navy Pier.

From 1870 to the present, the windows depict landscapes, nursery rhymes, and historic moments.They represent an era of intense urban revision that featured the development, decline and revitalization of neighborhoods, the development of commercial and cultural institutions, the evolution of artistic styles, and the response of various ethnic groups to these changes.

A detail view of Bacchanalia (c.1900) at the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows.

The religious windows reveal the national and ethnic styles of Chicago’s European immigrants, while the residential windows display the history of architecture and decorative art styles.

Carpenter Liam Stewart works on the installation of this large stained glass piece, Printer's History, (c.1914), at the Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows.

The museum also displayed unique contemporary pieces including stained glass portraits of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Michael Jordan as well as several pieces of Tiffany stained glass dating as far back as 1890. The museum contained the largest public display of Tiffany windows in the world!

Glass Cleaning - Brian Selke, assistant conservator with Restoration Division, LLC, cleans an American stained and painted glass window that will be boxed up at Navy Pier. The piece is by designers Elizabeth Parsons, Edith Blake Brown and Ethyl Isadore Brown for the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition.

The collection was on display in an unconventional space that snakes along Navy Pier's lower level, and can appear at first glance more like a well-decorated hallway than a museum. The 800-foot-long central corridor at the east end of the pier is visited by art aficionados — and tourists seeking a restroom.

Movers from Aaron's Reliable Inc. move a window from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair from The Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows. The windows are being moved to other sites, including the Macy's Pedway and Terminal 5 at Chicago O'Hare International Airport.

Ready to be Moved - Jim Freeman, left, associate conservator, and Pamela Olson, conservation technician, both with Restoration Division LLC, prepare to wrap a (c.1900) American stained and painted glass window to be moved from The Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows.

The Smith Stained Glass Museum closed in October of 2014.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

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The Driehaus Gallery of Stained Glass Windows at Navy Pier from 2001-2017.

Chicago Skyline – Tiffany Studio

The adjacent Richard H. Driehaus Gallery of Stained Glass Windows opened in 2001 and closed in September of 2017. It was devoted to ecclesiastical and secular windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany and interrelated businesses between 1890 and 1930.

Ecclesiastical Angels - Tiffany Glass & Decorating Company, (c.1890).

The windows were from the extensive Tiffany collection of Chicago businessman Richard H. Driehaus. There were 11 Tiffany windows on display in the Driehaus Gallery, along with a Tiffany Studios fire screen.

Tiffany Studios fire screen has four sections, each 16" wide, with simple bronze frames and scrolled bronze feet supporting center curtains of Tiffany Chain Mail with glass tiles of white and bluish opalescent glass. The screen is topped with white lightly iridescent balls within a bronze ring. The bronze is finished in rich brown patina with strong green highlights. Signed "Tiffany Studios New York." SIZE: 64" w x 36" tall to top of glass ball decoration. Sold at auction for $95,000.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.