Lincoln's Connection to Camp Kane, Civil War Training Camp, St. Charles, Illinois.

John Franklin Farnsworth was a resident of St. Charles. He was an attorney, founder of the Republican Party, congressman, as well as a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln. In 1858, he advised Lincoln during the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, and in 1860 nominated Lincoln for president during the Republican Party Convention. Farnsworth was also called to the bedside of the dying President at the Petersen House after Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre in 1865. 

John Franklin Farnsworth

Without Farnsworth's influence, Camp Kane would not have been so successful. Farnsworth had no problems in fulfilling the 1,200-man quota. Approximately one in six men from St. Charles served in the regiments. Recruits also came from as far as Indiana, Iowa, and Michigan.

After the Civil War began, Farnsworth requested permission from his friend, President Lincoln, to commission a volunteer cavalry regiment and train them in St. Charles, Illinois, on property Farnsworth owned. The commission was approved on August 11, 1861. Abraham named the new regiment "Farnsworth's Big Abolitionist Regiment." Farnsworth was promoted to Colonel.

Camp Kane officially opened for training on September 18, 1861, with 1,164 men who mustered in. It was the only Civil War Training Camp in Kane County that became home to the 8th Illinois Cavalry and later the 17th Illinois Cavalry. 

In February 1864, extensive barracks were built on the Lovell property, in the north part of the city, which received the designation of Camp Kane, and in February 1864, these were temporarily occupied by the Fifty-second Regiment, then at home for a short time. The regiment received large accessions from the place on a redeparture for the front in March of the same year, and in the June following the One Hundred and Fortieth Illinois Volunteers, marched from Camp Kane. Elgin contributed two companies to the regiment. Besides these mentioned, Elgin contributed many soldiers to other organizations, and from the day, in the early spring of 1861, that the first company left it, until the happy midsummer, four years after, that the war's last veteran marched proudly home, Elgin was never derelict to the calls of the struggling, but at last victorious republic.

Colonel Farnsworth was close friends and political allies with Joseph Medill, Chicago Tribune Editor, and co-owner. Medill was also an abolitionist and used the Tribune for the cause. Once approval was granted to form the 8th Illinois Cavalry, Medill promoted recruiting in the Tribune. Even William Medill, Joseph's brother volunteered. 

Despite its size, St. Charles gave one of the largest quotas of troops in all of Kane County. St. Charles residents such as General Farnsworth, Captain Elliott, Major Van Patten, Major John Waite, Captain Beach, Captain McGuire, Colonel Gillett, Major (Judge) Barry, Lieutenant Durant, and Dr. Crawford all aided in the war effort. These names are among the most important in the history of St. Charles..

Following the war, men of the 8th Cavalry continued to serve their country. In April 1865, they took part in the search for Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, and also guarded the President's body.

Located on the east bank of the Fox River, Camp Kane, Civil War Training Camp, St. Charles, Illinois.

The 8th Illinois Cavalry's honors included battles such as Mechanicsville, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and most notably Gettysburg, where it was the 8th Illinois Cavalry's Lt. Marcellus Jones who fired the first shot of the famous battle. Confederate Colonel John S. Mosby "The Grey Ghost" called the 8th Illinois Cavalry "The best cavalry regiment in the Army of the Potomac." On a more sorrowful note, the 8th Illinois Cavalry also had the disheartening yet distinguished honor of being the honor guards for  Lincoln's funeral train.  

A Reenactment Photograph.

General Farnsworth and Colonel John Beveridge commissioned the 17th Illinois Cavalry in early 1863. Most of their service was in Missouri. They trained at Camp Kane in the early months of 1863 and Camp Kane remained an active training camp until early 1864.

Visit Camp Kane at Langum Park at 999 South 7th Street, St Charles, Illinois.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The History of the Western Electric Plant, Hawthorne Works, Cicero, Illinois.

THE HAWTHORNE WORKS

The Hawthorne Works was a large Western Electric Company factory complex in Cicero, Illinois. 

Cicero began as separate settlements that gradually expanded into one community. On June 23, 1857, a local government was organized for the district named "The Town of Cicero." Railroads, immigration, and the Civil War contributed to economic growth in the new township, which by 1867 incorporated the municipality and the Town of Cicero.

By 1889, Chicago had annexed more than half of the original Town. An 1899 referendum ceded the Austin neighborhood to Chicago, and in the following year, land containing a race track was transferred to Stickney Township. The Town of Cicero retained less than six of the 36 square miles carved out in 1849.

Cicero comprises eight neighborhoods, each with its own district names and characteristics. Two were named for businesses: Hawthorne for an 1850s quarry, the first industry in what later became Cicero, and Grant Works after an 1890 locomotive factory. The other six are Boulevard Manor, Clyde, Drezel, Morton Park, Parkholme, and Warren Park.

The grazing cow in the foreground is apparently undisturbed by the rapid expansion of Hawthorn Works nearby. This 1907 view from Cermak Road shows the first Telephone Apparatuses buildings shortly after completion, and the corner building with its distinctive water tower did not start until 1912.

1920

1925

The Hawthorne Works complex was built at Cicero Avenue and Cermak Road. The facility consisted of several buildings and contained a private railroad, "Manufacturers Junction Railroad," to move shipments through the plant to the nearby Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad freight depot. In the first decades, the factory complex was significantly expanded.

Charles M. Prchal was born in 1896 in Golcuv Jenikov, a small town southeast of Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now in the Czech Republic. In August 1911, he journeyed alone to America and settled in Chicago, furthers his education at night school, finds employment at Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works, and builds a lifelong career there. It’s a scenario repeated thousands of times at General Electric's Hawthorne Works, but it’s backed by fact, not legend. 

Charles M. Prchal

Prchal joined Western Electric in 1918, just as the Hawthorne Works launched another of its frequent expansion projects. He worked days while studying architectural drafting and structural engineering at night school. 

His first big assignment was the design of the seven-story tower at the northwest corner of the Works complex. The 183-foot-tall red-brick spire housed the elegant executive offices on its top floor. At its dedication in 1919, Western Electric president Charles DuBois proclaimed the structure the symbol of Hawthorne’s past and future, created by “hard work of hand and brain, and square dealing with everyone.” At the Works Silver Jubilee in 1978, Prchal agreed that the tower had “always been a symbol of the promise of sixty years ago—the promise of a great manufacturing plant and its thousands of employees producing important equipment.”

Later in his career, Prchal designed the Tivoli Theater in Downers Grove and the domed mausoleum at Chicago’s Bohemian National Cemetery. He also served for thirty-two years as the president of the American Sokol, an organization dedicated to preserving Bohemian culture and providing guidance to youth through social and athletic programs. After a forty-three-year career, Prchal retired from Western Electric but remained active as a lecturer, author, and member of many social and fraternal societies until he died in 1980.

Although his most impressive design has been gone since 1987, the image of Mr. Prchal’s tower still represents the Hawthorne Works to everyone who recalls its glory days. And his life story illustrates the accomplishments of the many humbly-born immigrants who found an outlet for their potential during America’s industrial golden age.

In 1915, Western Electric was associated with one of the worst accidents in Chicago's history. The SS Eastland, a boat filled with Hawthorne Works employees and family members attending the company's annual outing, capsized at its dock in the Chicago River, killing over 800 people.

A view of the hospital and gas plant in a garden setting.

Researchers at the Hawthorne Works pioneered new technologies such as the high-vacuum tube, the condenser microphone, and airplane radio systems during the 1910s.

By 1917, the Hawthorne Works facility employed 25,000 people, many Cicero residents of Czech and Polish descent, who produced telephone, cable, and every major telephone switching system in the country. In 1900, 676,733 Bell Telephone stations were owned and connected in the country. By 1910, three years after Hawthorne Works opened, these 25,000 employees produced 5,142,699 telephones, and by 1920, 11,795,747 Bell telephones. Over 14,000 different types of apparatus were manufactured at the plant to provide the telecommunications infrastructure for this exponential growth. During the plant's early years into the 1920s, Western Electric was also a major producer of household appliances.

During the Great Depression (1929-1933), the company laid off thousands of workers, but business recovered during World War II. During the war years, when it was subject to federal rules for government contracts, the company began to employ negroes for the first time.

On the eve of World War II (1939-1942), roughly 90% of demand for Western Electric's products came from one customer, the Bell System. By mid-1941, 85% of the demand for products came from the federal government, for which the company provided more than 30% of all electronic gear for war, including radar equipment.

When World War II (1939-1942) started, the U.S. government called on Hawthorne Works to engineer and manufacture mass quantities of the most modern and capable communications and radar equipment.

The area where lead sheaths were placed around the cord.

Employees rolling the telephone wires.

The Hawthorne Works produced a large output of telephone equipment. In addition, Western Electric produced various consumer products and electrical equipment, including refrigerators and electric fans. 

The works employed up to 45,000 employees at the height of operations in WW II. Workers regularly used bicycles for transit within the plant.

WESTERN ELECTRIC PERKS LEAD TO EMPLOYMENT LONGEVITY

Hawthorne Works benefited greatly by keeping workers happy. There were company-owned, not-for-profit restaurants and cafeterias within the complex. Employees of all statures could have quality hot breakfasts and lunches at drastically reduced prices. 

Other perks included a hospital and numerous "first-aid" rooms spread around the complex; a shoe store; eye care, glasses, and repairs; a store that carried items like men's ties, greeting cards, sundries, snacks, and even women's nylons.

Hawthorne recognized individual milestones in employment with service pins and a dinner. Retirement celebrations were quite elaborate. The entire department would be invited to a fancy dinner, a boutonnière for the retiree, and a corsage and beautiful flower arrangement for the retiree's wife.

THE HAWTHORNE CLUB

• Club Evening School offered over 60 subjects, i.e., English, Languages, First Aid, Drafting, Accounting, Telephony, and more.
• Health Appearance Personality course, free of charge for women only.
• Hawthorne Club Library est. 1940.
• Athletic Activities: Baseball, Basketball, the Albright Gymnasium, Tennis, Golf for Men and Women, Bowling for Men and Women, Horseshoe Courts, and the Rifle Club.
• The Club's services included a Notary Service, Classified Ads, Young Men's Activities, Theater Bureau, and a Travel Bureau.

As a means of providing outlets for the many Hawthorne Works employees who have interests or hobbies in common, a number of associated clubs have been formed; the Boot and Saddle Club, Camera Club, Chess and Checker Club, Coin Club, Excursion Club, Flower and Garden Club, The Forum, Players Club, Hunting Club, Fishing Club, Male Chorus, Mixed Chorus, Science Club, Stamp Club, and the Flying Club.

BOOKLET: The Hawthorne Club was founded for Fellowship. 

Western Electric Hawthorne Works Albright Gymnasium and outdoor track at Cermak & 52nd Avenue. (1930s)

But the pièce de résistance was the yearly "Hello Charley Girl" contest.

The Origin of 'Hello Charley.'

Newcomers were often confused during the Merrimack Valley Works, North Andover, Massachusetts (opened 1953), "WE Valley Girl" Contest by long term employees referring to the Queen as the "Hello Charley Girl."

Originally a vacation queen contest. The winner took the name of the greeting that Western Electric employees used when discovering a fellow "Westerner" on vacation. 

Why "Hello Charley" and not Phillip? 

 

The greeting grew from an incident involving Charley Drucker, a benefits serviceman in the old days of the Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois. A pensioner whom he had visited wrote him a letter addressed "Charley, Western Electric." Since the retiree had not remembered Charley's last name, the letter made the rounds until finding the right Charley. 

Since this letter people began addressing each other as "Charley Western." Soon the greeting spread throughout the company. Every location nationwide has its vacation queen.

The "Hello Charley Girl" being crowned the winner in 1948, posing for a formal portrait.

THE DEATH OF THE HAWTHORNE WORKS

The Hawthorne Works announced its closing in 1983 because most of its operations had been distributed to more modern facilities around the country. In 1986, the shutdown was completed. The Foundry and most Telephone Apparatus buildings were demolished between 1975 and 1983. The remaining Telephone Apparatus buildings and the Executive Tower were razed in 1986 and 1987. The rest of the Hawthorne Works was demolished in 1994.

The only survivors are the Water Tower and the Cable building at 4545 West Cermak Road.

The property was purchased in the mid-1980s by the late Donald L. Shoemaker and replaced with a shopping center.

Due to Hawthorne's significance in industrial manufacturing in the United States, the Hawthorne Works was the site of well-known industrial studies.

THE HAWTHORNE EFFECT

The Hawthorne effect is named for the Hawthorne Works. North American Quality pioneer Joseph Juran referred to the Hawthorne Works as "the seedbed of the Quality Revolution." The career arcs of other notable quality professionals, such as Walter Shewhart and Edwards Deming, also intersected at the Hawthorne Works.

The term "Hawthorne effect" refers to reactivity in which individuals modify an aspect of their behavior in response to their awareness of being observed. The industrial psychology series of experiments began in 1924. It was first observed in data from the Hawthorne Works collected by psychologist Elton Mayo and later reinterpreted by Henry A. Landsberger, who coined the term in 1958.

This well-known and remarkable effect was discovered in research conducted at the Western Electric Hawthorne Works plant. However, some scholars feel the descriptions are apocryphal (of doubtful authenticity, although widely circulated as accurate).

The original research involved workers who made electrical relays at the Hawthorne Works. Between 1924 and 1927, a famous lighting study was conducted. Workers experienced a series of lighting changes in which productivity was said to increase with almost any change in the lighting. This turned out not to be true. In the study associated with Elton Mayo, which ran from 1928 to 1932, five women implemented work structure changes (i.e., rest periods). However, this methodologically poor, uncontrolled study did not permit any firm conclusions.

One of the later interpretations by Landsberger suggested that the novelty of being research subjects and the increased attention from such could lead to temporary increases in workers' productivity. This interpretation was dubbed "the Hawthorne effect."

RELAY ASSEMBLY EXPERIMENTS

In one of the studies, researchers chose two women as test subjects and asked them to choose four other workers to join the test group. The women assembled telephone relays in a separate room for over five years (1927-1932).

Output was measured mechanically by counting how many finished relays each worker dropped down a chute. This measuring began in secret two weeks before moving the women to an experiment room and continued throughout the study. In the experiment room, they had a supervisor who discussed changes in their productivity. Some of the variables were:

• Given two 5-minute breaks (after discussing the best length of time), then changed to two 10-minute breaks (not their preference). Productivity increased, but they disliked it and reduced output when they received six 5-minute rests.
• Providing food during the breaks.
• Shortening the day by 30 minutes (output went up); trimming it more (output per hour went up, but overall production decreased); returning to the first condition (where output peaked).

Changing a variable usually increases productivity, even if the variable was just a change to the original condition. However, it is said that this is the natural process of the human being adapting to the environment without knowing the objective of the experiment. Researchers concluded that the workers worked harder because they thought they were being monitored individually.

Researchers hypothesized that choosing one's coworkers, working as a group, being treated as unique (as evidenced by working in a separate room), and having a sympathetic supervisor were the real reasons for the productivity increase. One interpretation, mainly due to Elton Mayo, was that "the six individuals became a team, and the team gave itself wholeheartedly and spontaneously to cooperation in the experiment." (There was a second relay assembly test room study with less significant results than the first experiment.)

BANK WIRING ROOM EXPERIMENTS

The purpose of the following study was to find out how payment incentives would affect productivity. The surprising result was that productivity decreased, and workers apparently had become suspicious that their productivity may have been boosted to justify firing some workers later. 

The study was conducted by Elton Mayo and W. Lloyd Warner between 1931 and 1932 on a group of fourteen men who put together telephone switching equipment. The researchers found that although the workers were paid according to individual productivity, productivity decreased because the men feared the company would lower the base rate.

Detailed observation of the men revealed the existence of informal groups or "cliques" within the formal groups. These cliques developed relaxed rules of behavior and mechanisms to enforce them. The cliques served to control group members and manage bosses. Clique members gave the same responses when bosses asked questions, even if they were untrue. These results show that workers were more responsive to the social force of their peer groups than to the control and incentives of management.

INTERPRETATIONS

Possible explanations for the Hawthorne effect include the impact of feedback and motivation toward the experimenter. Receiving feedback on their performance may improve their skills when an experiment provides this feedback for the first time. Research on the demand effect also suggests that people may be motivated to please the experimenter if it does not conflict with any other motive. They may also be suspicious of the purpose of the experimenter. Therefore, the Hawthorne effect may only occur when there is useable feedback or a change in motivation.

Elton Mayo contended that the effect was due to the workers reacting to the sympathy and interest of the observers. He did discuss the study as demonstrating an experimenter effect but as a management effect: how management can make workers perform differently because they feel differently. He suggested that much of the Hawthorne effect concerned the workers feeling free and in control as a group rather than as being supervised. The experimental manipulations were influential in convincing the workers to feel this way, that conditions in the particular five-person workgroup were really different from the conditions on the shop floor. 

Harry Braverman pointed out that the Hawthorne tests were based on industrial psychology, and the researchers involved were investigating whether workers' performance could be predicted by pre-hire testing. The Hawthorne study showed "that workers' performance had little relation to their ability and, in fact, often bore an inverse relation to test scores." Braverman argued that the studies showed that the workplace was not "a system of a formal bureaucratic organization on the Weberian model, nor a system of informal group relations, as in the interpretation of Elton Mayo and his followers, but rather a system of power and antagonisms." This discovery was a blow to those hoping to apply the behavioral sciences to manipulate workers in management's interest.

Greenwood, Bolton, and Greenwood (1983) interviewed some of the employees in the experiments and found that the participants were paid significantly better.

Over 800 Western Electric Hawthorne Works Employees Died in the SS Eastland Disaster on the Chicago River on July 24, 1915.

Additional reading about the Hawthorne Effect (PDF):

Was there Really a Hawthorne Effect at the Hawthorne Plant? 

Rethinking the Hawthorne Studies: The Western Electric research in its social, political and historical context.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

J.C. Reuter’s General Store, later, the Buchlitz Bakery, Freeburg, Illinois.

The "Fancy Goods" building was first owned by John C. Reuter who operated the general store on Main Street in Freeburg. Reuter also taught school from 1879 to 1885 in a one-room schoolhouse that opened in 1871. 

The "Fancy Goods" general store on Main Street in Freeburg. The Reichert Milling Company smokestack can be seen in the background.

In 1904, Paul Buchlitz purchased the building and turned the store into a bakery, and called it "Buchlitz Bakery." He had been a baker in St. Louis, Missouri, for some time. There is a very interesting story about Paul Buchlitz. Somewhat sad and yet, very mysterious.

Buchlitz Bakery. Date unknown.

In January 1906, Mrs. Buchlitz suddenly died after a mysterious illness of only a few days. Her death was listed as an "Inflammation of the Bowels." In June 1906, Buchlitz married a woman that he had been bringing to his house from his supply trips to St. Louis. She came there to care for the children and act as a housekeeper, especially during the time his wife was ill. 

Buchlitz's daughter, Paula, died suddenly at the home after a sudden and quick illness In October 1908 from something stomach-related.

In December 1908, Buchlitz's son, Willy, suddenly died from an apparent growth on his neck.

The last remaining son, Otto Buchlitz, suddenly died in December 1908 of peritonitis (inflammation of the tissue that lines the belly or abdomen) believed to have come about from eating green apples. 

In 1913, Buchlitz was granted a divorce from his second wife Clara, whom he married shortly after the death of his first wife. In 1914, Buchlitz was arrested for a statutory offense after a married woman (Mary) was coming to his home from Belleville, bringing her 8-year-old son with her. Her husband filed charges and both were arrested. It's unknown the outcome of the arrests.

Buchlitz and Mary were married in Waterloo, Illinois in 1919.

In 1921, Buchlitz was charged with violation of the child labor law for employing a girl who was only 14 years of age. 

Mary legally changed her 18-year-old son's last name to Buchlitz in 1923. He would operate this bakery for 26 years. 

In December 1930, Harry Borger purchased the property and business from Buchlitz. He would later move the business to a building across from the village square in the center of town. Buchlitz continued to live in the Main Street residence until 1951 when Mack Gabriel, owner, and founder of the Gabriel Motel north of town, purchased the building. 

It still stands today on the corner of Main and St. Clair Streets, Freeburg, Illinois.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Lost Towns of Illinois: Village of Wanborough, Illinois.

The former village of Wanborough, Illinois, was established in August 1818 by Morris Birkbeck (1764-1825) an English settler who was an early 19th-century Illinois pioneer, social reformer, author, publicist, and agricultural innovator. He served briefly as the Secretary of State of Illinois. Wanborough was a center of commerce for his fellow countrymen emigrating to the English Settlement in Edwards County, which was two miles west of Albion, Illinois.

Birkbeck was born in Settle, England, the son of an influential Quaker also named Morris Birkbeck and his wife, Hannah Bradford. By 1794, as leaseholder, Birkbeck was farming an estate of 1,500 acres at Wanborough, Surrey, where he was the first man to raise merino sheep in England. On April 24, 1794, Birkbeck married Prudence Bush, daughter of Richard and Prudence Bush of Wandsworth, Surrey. After ten years of marriage, Prudence died on October 25, 1804, leaving her husband with seven children.

In 1814, accompanied by his friend George Flower, Birkbeck traveled to recently defeated France. His Notes on a Journey through France (1814) revealed a good-tempered, fair-minded observer, well-grounded in science and the humanities. A liberal in politics and religion, Birkbeck found it increasingly irritating to be taxed by a government that denied him a vote because of his religion and required him to be tithed by a church he did not belong to.

In the spring of 1817, at age fifty-three, he emigrated to the United States with his associate George Flower and a party consisting chiefly of his children.

During 1817 and 1818, Morris Birkbeck purchased, both for himself and others, 26,400 acres of public land in what became Edwards County, Illinois (the Illinois Territory at that time). George Flower was busy raising more money and organizing colonists in England. Edward Coles, another London acquaintance, had extolled Illinois' virtues and intended to move to the Territory of Illinois, continued to serve President James Madison.

In 1818 Birkbeck laid out the town of Wanborough. Wanborough included two taverns, a grist mill, two stores, a pottery shop, a blacksmith, and one of the State's first breweries. The town, however, lasted for only a short time and was abandoned by 1840.

Village of Wanborough, Illinois Plat.

The same year, Flower, whose 1500 acres adjoined Birkbeck's, laid out the town of Albion nearby. The English idealists quarreled, partly over Julia Andrews, who married Flower rather than the older widower and never reconciled. The joint area known as the English Prairie Settlement had 400 English and 700 American residents in 1819 but only 800 in an informal survey in 1822.

In 1819 Morris Birkbeck organized the Agricultural Society of Illinois. Albion's colonists practiced scientific agriculture, improving livestock through selective breeding and writing tracts to inform settlers of ways to improve crop yields. In about 1819, Birkbeck and Flower experienced a falling out and subsequently transacted all business through intermediaries.

Birkbeck also served as a judge in Edwards County, Illinois. In 1823 Birkbeck, through newspaper articles under the pen name "Jonathan Freeman," helped to consolidate the antislavery forces in Illinois and ensure that it became a free state. In 1824 Coles, who had been elected the new state's second governor, appointed Birkbeck Secretary of State. Birkbeck served for three months but was turned out when the pro-slavery majority in the state Senate refused to confirm his appointment. Albion also became the county seat, although residents of Mount Carmel across the river attempted to retrieve some court records by force and ultimately split off their area as Wabash County, Illinois."

Morris Birkbeck drowned on June 4, 1825, while attempting to swim his horse across the flooded Fox River. Competition from the nearby town of Albion and Birkbeck's accidental drowning in 1825 contributed to the community's demise. A cemetery is all that is left of the village.

NOTE: Birkbeck's Notes on a Journey in America from the Coast of Virginia to the Territory of Illinois (1817) was published in Philadelphia, London, Dublin, and Cork. It ran through eleven editions in English in two years and was published in German at Jena (1818). His Letters from Illinois (1818), published in Boston, Philadelphia, and London, went through seven editions in English, besides being translated in 1819 into French and German. By directing settlers to the prairie lands of the then west, these books had a wide influence.

Letters from Illinois. By Morris Birkbeck, published 1818. Courtesy of my Digital Research Library of Illinois History®

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Lost Towns of Illinois: Green Rock, Illinois

In 1939, the city of Green Rock, named for the Green and Rock Rivers that bordered it, was surveyed and platted. It was officially incorporated in 1950 with a charter. Colona was 47 years older than Green Rock and was incorporated in 1903.

Green Rock was unique because it started out as a city. It had several businesses but Colona served as its mail distributor.

The City of Green Rock and the Village of Colona shared many things. There were discussions about merging the two cities that began in the late 1960s. Green Rock residents voted in favor of a merger in 1968, but Colona did not. Residents in both communities voted in favor of the merger 566 in favor to 492 against merging in 1995.

They finally united into one community and renamed it the City of Colona in April of 1997. The was a historical moment as this was the first time in the history of Illinois that two towns merged, by popular vote, rather than one being annexed by the other.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Lost Towns of Illinois - Civer, Illinois.

Civer was located in Fulton County, Illinois, beginning as a settlement village six miles west of Canton. The earliest record of Civer (40° 31' 27" N 90° 6' 27" W) was a note from 1835 about Charles H. Turner who was engaged in farming until 1869. Mr. Floyd F. Putman was a native son of Illinois, born in Civer, Fulton County, on October 8, 1880.

David W. Pittman engaged in the grain business at Civer Station in 1885 for over a year.

The Civer Rail Station was on the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railway, an off-shoot from the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad from the point of connection at the Village of Bryant, Illinois, in a northwesterly direction to Civer Station.

A story in the Bloomington Weekly Leader on Thursday, December 14, 1893, mentions two run-away girls walking from the Lewistown rail station north-northwest to the rail station in Civer, about 18 miles.

The town disappeared by 1906. All that's left is the sign marker.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The History of the Illinois Central Railroad in Freeburg, Illinois.

The Illinois Central line between Belleville and DuQuoin, Illinois, was built by the Belleville and Southern Illinois Railroad Company,  later to be called the Alton and Terre Haute Railroad Company, which was incorporated by the General Assembly of Illinois Congress on February 14, 1857. Very little was done as far as the construction of an actual RR line until after the Civil War. In 1866, surveying began on the rail line between Freeburg and Belleville. In May 1869, the contract for the building of the line from Belleville and the newly added addition to New Athens was awarded to Messrs. Clark & Co. of Chicago. The contract stipulated that the work is to be completed to Freeburg, which is one-half the distance, by the first day of September 1869, and to New Athens by the first day of October. Of course, this schedule could never be kept as many problems occurred with labor. But the line from Belleville to Freeburg, a distance of only seven miles, was completed by November 1869, and at that time, when the first locomotive rolled into town, there was a huge celebration.

Many Freeburg people had never seen such a massive piece of machinery, clanking and pouring hot white steam from every orifice. Some people ran in fear as the massive engine rounded the curve north of town. The whistle could be heard for miles. By the end of 1870, the 15-mile line from Belleville to New Athens, through Freeburg, had been completed. Now work began to continue the line to DuQuoin and then on to Cairo. This line would now be called the Cairo Short Line. In October 1869, a new locomotive, of thirty tons, 16 x24 cylinders, had been purchased at the McQueen Works in New York, for the amount of $13,500 ($285,000 today). This engine was specially designed for a passenger train service that had been planned for the new line which was now being extended into St. Louis.

Freeburg Train Station, Circa 1890.

With the start of passenger service, towns along the line would need a station for train stops. The first depot was built in Freeburg in 1870. By the time the station was completed in 1871, the name of the line was changed to St. Louis, Alton & Terre Haute Railroad Company, and remained in operation under this name until October 1895.

Freeburg Illinois Train Station Passengers, Circa 1890s.

At this time, the line was leased to the Illinois Central Railroad Company and this same company purchased the line in February 1907. By this time, the line had been extended to Paducah, KY, and through connecting extensions to the south and north, this line could travel to the Gulf of Mexico or Canada. The line saw the most passenger travel during the period of 1910-1940. It was also during this time that a second rail would be added to the line that extended almost the entire length of the line. In the 1920-1930 period, twelve trains made a stop in Freeburg from 5:45 a.m. to 10:45 p.m. (going both ways). After the war ended in 1945, passenger service began to decline as people were obtaining automobiles or riding the bus. Although a train ride was often fast, comfortable and relaxing, it could also be messy and often the passengers were faced with smoke and soot-filled cars as the trains raced across the tracks.

By September 1958, the ICRR had discontinued all but one passenger stop which headed north to St. Louis in the morning and south to Cairo in the evening. It would take only 8 months until the ICRR decided to dismiss all passenger service in this line. Nobody cared to ride the train anymore.

The ICRR would continue to operate this line for freight purposes until 1999 when it was taken over by the Canadian National Railroad Company. The CNR continues to operate this line to this day with very limited train service.

Many men have served as station agents in Freeburg over the years. The first recorded agent was Mr. Rad Burnett in 1898. He remained until December 1905, when Mr. T.E. Crawford took over, and remained until 1917. At this time, Mr. Charles C. Mulkey became the station agent. He would be located in Freeburg for 21 years and in January 1938, Mr. Roy Virgin, a native of Lementon Station [1] (which was located in the area of the Gas plant south of Freeburg), became the station agent. Mr. Virgin is probably the most remembered of the agents here in Freeburg. In April 1955, Mr. Russell Kilgore was appointed as station agent after Mr. Virgin decided to retire. Mr. Kilgore would be the last agent at this station. By 1960, nearly all freight and mail stops in Freeburg had ceased. The need for a depot had ended and the building became a playground for local kids until, in the mid-1980s, when the depot was torn down. The second track was also removed.

There were other rail lines that almost became a part of Freeburg’s history. In April 1909, St. Louis & St. Libory Railroad Company purchased a “right of way” through Lyman Wilderman’s farm, from the Locust Grove Schoolhouse to the current Illinois Central Railroad line (running east to west, east of the Gas Plant south of Freeburg). Necessary grading would be done immediately and then a switch would be laid to connect with the ICRR line. A completion date of September 1, 1909, was the hope. Grading from Silver Creek, heading west to the ICRR line near Lementon Station had already been completed by June 1909. This line would progress no further and later became an access rail line for the Red Ray Mine.

Another line was planned in December 1905. It would be an electric rail line traveling from East St. Louis to Freeburg by way of Millstadt and Smithton with future extensions heading to Fayetteville and St. Libory. This electric rail line never got past the planning stages.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

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[1] Lementon Station - John T. Lemen, a trustee of the First Baptist Church resided south of Freeberg. A mine close to the railroad, located on the Ben Hartman farm, was known as the Lemen Mine. Near here, on the William Hartman farm was the Lemen School. Further south, about three miles, was a railroad stop known as Lementon Station.

Was Rosehill Cemetery Initially named Roe’s Hill?

The town of Chittenden was a subdivision of Lake View Township. In 1859 Chittenden was sold and incorporated as a cemetery named Rose Hill (aka Roe's Hill; Rose Hill). The rail line is the former North Western Railroad Company tracks that ran along the east side of the property in what is now known as Ravenswood Avenue. 

The proper name of Rosehill Cemetery, dedicated in 1859, is debatable. Though most official paperwork gives it as a single word, Rosehill, it’s not uncommon to see it written as Rose Hill. And several popular stories claim that the name was supposed to be Roe’s Hill, and only a clerical error resulted in the name we know today.

Rosehill Cemetery, Founded in 1859, Entrance, Chicago, Illinois.

The often-given story: "The land, seven miles north of downtown Chicago, was once a farm and tavern owned by a stubborn old pioneer named Hiram Roe. When someone wanted to buy the land from the old man for a cemetery in 1859, stubborn old Roe only agreed when the buyer promised to name the cemetery after him – but a clerical error resulted in it being spelled as 'Rosehill' instead."

But, while there’s reason to believe Roe was a real person, the story of him wanting to have the cemetery named after him is certainly fiction. 

Hiram Roe's farm sat atop the highest point in the area, from seventeen to twenty feet above the adjacent prairie on the south and east, and was commonly known as "Roe’s Hill." One of the reasons his land thrived was because, when it rained, it was one of the few farms in the area that didn’t turn into a swamp.

The land wasn’t bought from him and wasn’t intended to be a cemetery when it was first purchased.

Lawsuit records recorded in The Northeastern Reporter in 1895, when a suit for over-payment was going on, make the whole story clear of how the land changed hands: In 1857, Francis H. Benson bought the land where the cemetery now sits, then in the suburban town of Chittenden, for about $25,000 from the Illinois and Wisconsin Land Company. He intended to parcel it out into lots for houses, but the Panic of 1857 hit the economy hard, causing the land to lose about one-half of its value and decimating the market for suburban real estate. The only money Benson made from the land in the first year came from selling off a bit of gravel he found on it.

Trains arrived at Rosehill Cemetery at Chittenden Station, named for the “town” of Chittenden, where the land was sold to the Rose Hill Cemetery Company. 

The elevation and dryness of the soil made Benson think some of the lands would make a good cemetery. He partnered with James Blaney, the first president of Rosehill, to form the Rosehill Cemetery corporation. The company was incorporated in February of 1859, and the cemetery opened for business that summer. Benson and Blaney’s names are both carved onto the gate. When the cemetery published a promotional book in 1913, they said that the name came from wild white roses that grew on the hill.

St. Henry Catholic Church, 6335 North Hoyne Avenue,  Chicago, confirmation documents from 1891 show entry for families living in "East Ravenswood Park (Rose Hill)" from family Search; Film № 008571278 - page 126.

In this very early image, before 1897 or so, the original Northwestern tracks can be seen at ground level. You are looking north. The cemetery is off the left. The large train station is on the east side of the tracks, opposite the cemetery and where passengers would board trains back to Chicago.

But the story that the name of the cemetery may have grown from a hill named for Mr. Roe may not be entirely false; while the “stubborn farmer who owned the land” tales are of decidedly modern vintage, probably about 60 years ago, stories that the land was once called Roe’s Hill appear in several 19th-century sources.

1924 Northern Illinois Principal Cities and Railroads. Rand McNally and Company.
David Rumsey Historical Map Collection.

The first mention found comes from just over 20 years after the cemetery was chartered, when the Chicago Tribune ran an article about onion farming on September 6, 1880. In the article, it said that in the early days of Chicago history, teamsters traveling in the woods seven miles north of town would often stop at the “Jug Tavern” owned by old Man Roe, who made a sort of whiskey that was popular enough for its fame to make them start referring to the area as Roe’s Hill.

Roe's cabin was near the later residence of J. A. Budlong, which was located at Foster and Western. The Budlong Pickle Farm was located on Western at Berwyn. 

A few years later, A.T. Andreas’ authoritative History of Cook County also mentioned this, stating that the area of Bowmanville was once known as Roe’s Hill for Hiram Roe. 

CLICK FOR A FULL-SIZE MAP

The Tribune mentioned Roe again in 1900 when an article on the origins of the names of various suburbs said that Bowmanville was originally known as Roe’s Hill after Hiram Roe. 

However, census records say nothing about a Hiram Roe in the area. There was a farmer named Hiram Rowe up near McHenry County, but there was no evidence that he ever lived closer to the city. Furthermore, these mentions that the area was called “Roe’s Hill” in the old days (the 1830s-1850s) are all from a few decades later; no instance of anyone calling it Roe’s Hill in the actual “old days” has been found. Andreas and the Tribune may have just been repeating neighborhood gossip and urban legends.

Looking North on Ravenswood Avenue. Note the cemetery's name on the entrance structure; ROSE HILL.

Perhaps the tale that Rosehill was Roe’s Hill may have all been a misunderstanding; In 1856, Robert Ferguson wrote a book on Danish and Norse names in Scotland and said that a Rose Hill in the U.K. was, he believed Roe’s Hill, from the Old Norse word for “King properly.”  Perhaps someone heard that bit and thought it applied to the Rosehill in Chicago.

Still, the fact that sources knew the full name and even the tavern's location makes it look like there was a kernel of truth in the story someplace. So, Hiram Roe remains a bit of a mystery; A tour guide who works at Rosehill said he’d pored through all of the oldest books at the cemetery, looking for any mention of Hiram Roe without finding a word.

ADDITIONAL READING: Ancient Chicago Indian Mounds (Rosehill).

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.