Lost Towns of Illnois - Bayville, Illinois.

Bayville was a village in Pike County, Illinois that flourished on Bay Creek about a mile southeast of the present site of Pleasant Hill, Illinois. 

Bayville had several stores, a mill, a smithy, and a plow factory. Dr. Hezekiah Dodge was the area's first doctor. The village had a cemetery, and the business district had a lot of activity. The area's first school was built. 

The Collard family had twelve children who all became teachers, most in the south Pike area. Most prominent was John J. Collard, an outstanding teacher and two-time county clerk. 

Bayville faded in the 19th century, leaving only the cemetery and the school as evidence that a town with people had been there.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Lost Towns of Illnois - Montezuma, Illinois.

The Illinois River port of the Village of Montezuma is located in Pike County, Illinois.

In 1880 Montezuma had a population around 100. The town was highly developed and riverboats routinely stopped there. Montezuma flourished as a riverport through the 19th century. The town had a church, a school, a warehouses, a general store, a grain elevator, a blacksmith shop, a photograph studio, and a saloon or two. 

The railroad and trucks brought big changes. 

A railroad was built through the Pearl area, skipping both Montezuma and its inland partner, Milton. Livestock was still shipped to market by boat, but starting in the mid-1920s most livestock was shipped in trucks. Montezuma rapidly faded. Although some vestiges of the town remain, the town plat, which projected a town three-quarters of a mile long, was not needed. 

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The History of Funks Grove Pure Maple Sirup Farm in Funks Grove, Illinois.

The benefits of maple trees growing in this native timber area were likely enjoyed long before the Funk family settled in 1824.

History has it that Indians were the first maple sirup producers. They used maple sugar to season their corn and other vegetables and poured maple sirup over their fish and meat. The following is one of the many legends about how maple syrup was first discovered.

sidebar

Woksis, an Iroquois Chief immortalized in Native American lore, is best known for his accidental role in the discovery of maple syrup. This tale echoes through Illinois maple sugaring traditions, according to Iroquois tradition. One night, upon returning from hunting, an Iroquois chief named Woksis plunged his hatchet into the side of a tree for safekeeping overnight. In the morning, he removed his hatchet and went out to hunt. There happened to be a bowl directly beneath the gash left by Woksis' hatchet, and the sap began to flow into it. 

Woksis was an Indigenous chief who went hunting one early March morning. The night before, he had embedded his tomahawk into a maple tree. When he removed it the next day, sap began to flow from the gash into a bowl placed below.

His wife, mistaking the sap for water, used it to cook venison stew. As the stew simmered, the sap reduced into a sweet syrup, delighting both Woksis and his wife. Both Woksis and his wife were pleasantly surprised by the sweet-tasting stew, and thus it was discovered how maple sirup could be made from sap. This serendipitous event is celebrated as the origin of maple syrup production among Native peoples. 

Iroquois territory (Northeastern U.S.), but the tale echoes through Illinois maple traditions. While Woksis himself was Iroquois and not directly tied to Illinois, his legend became foundational to maple syrup traditions in the region. In places like Funks Grove, Illinois—home to one of the oldest commercial maple syrup operations—Native American methods and stories like Woksis’s were honored and adapted by settlers.

Isaac Funk and his wife, Cassandra. Circa 1850s

Isaac Funk, the pioneer founder of what would later become known as Funks Grove, chose his location well in 1824—good water supply, fertile soil, and timber for shelter and heat. 

Isaac raised livestock and drove it to market on foot. He later served in the Illinois Senate, where he was a friend and supporter of Abraham Lincoln. While he was away, his sons, led by the eldest, George Washington Funk (whom they dubbed "The General"), took care of the farm. Isaac and his sons also made maple sirup and sugar—cooking the sap in kettles over a fire—for personal use since it was the only readily available source of sweetener. Around 1860, Isaac's youngest son, Isaac II, took over the syrup production. 

sidebar

Arthur Funk opened the first commercial maple sirup farm at Funks Grove, Illinois, in the spring of 1891. 

Arthur Funk, Issac Funk II's son, replaced his father's wooden spouts with metal spouts purchased from Vermont. The small, peaked cabin that served as the first commercial sirup farm's cooking house stood on the ground now occupied by the Funks Grove Interstate 55 rest area. 

Funks Grove Sugarhouse in the 1890s.

In 1896, Arthur's brother, Lawrence, took over the operation, cooking the sirup in a flat-pan evaporator and putting out about 1,000 buckets at once.

​In the early 1920s, the reins were handed over to Arthur and Lawrence's cousin, Hazel Funk Holmes (daughter of Isaac II's brother Absalom Funk), who owned the property on which the syrup operation is now located. Hazel's permanent residence was out East, so she rented the property to tenants who farmed the land and made the maple sirup. She had the little peaked cabin Arthur and Lawrence had used as a cooking house moved to the present location, using it as a guesthouse and her summer home. A new sugarhouse was built to accommodate a flue-pan evaporator. During this same time, the paved road that later became Route 66 was finished near the sirup farm. At this time, the Funk's Grove sirup producers were hanging about 600 buckets and made up to 240 gallons of sirup per year.

In her will, Hazel arranged for her timber and farmland to be protected by a trust that ensures that future generations will continue to enjoy the "sweet stuff" produced in Funks Grove. In this trust, Hazel expressed her wish to keep the spelling of "sirup" with an "i." The Funks obliged. 

sidebar

“Sirup” with an 'i' is listed in Webster's Dictionary as the concentrated juice of a fruit or plant. It's the same definition given for "Syrup." Sirup was commonly produced without adding any other types or forms, natural or chemical, of sugars.  Funks Grove uses this time honored method.

In 1942, sirup production was halted because of the war—heavy taxes on sugar made the business unprofitable. But production resumed in 1943, and in 1947, Stephen Funk, son of Lawrence, and his wife, Glaida, took over the operation. In 1958, Stephen had the first underground cistern installed. Before, the sap had been emptied into a storage tank above the evaporator, using gravity to flow into the evaporator. They also began using oil to fuel the cooking process rather than wood. In 1960, Stephen experimented with tubing to collect sap. The tubing ran along the ground, and the Funks soon found that squirrels could chew up the lines faster than they could be repaired, so they decided to return to using the traditional metal buckets.

Funks Sugarhouse, 1967.

In the early 1970s, construction began on Interstate 55, and it was routed to cut right through the Funk's Grove timber. Fortunately, the Funks were able to petition to get it rerouted and save their precious timber. At first, the Funks were concerned that this new road would detract from one of their primary sources of customers—people who decided on impulse to stop while traveling Route 66—but once they erected a sign on the new interstate, new business started stopping in. Stephen and his son Mike formed a partnership In the late 1970s.

In 1988, Stephen retired, and Mike and his wife, Debby, took over the business. This same year, Stephen, Mike, and Mike's brothers, Larry and Adam, built the sugarhouse we use today. 

Funks Grove Pure Maple Sirup Video

In 1989, Mike decided to try tubing again, this time with the lines suspended above the ground, and he has continued to improve and expand this system over the years since. 

Funk's Grove Store Entrance.

During the "in-vogue" nostalgic craze for Route 66 from the 1970s into the 2000s, interest in Funks Grove Maple Sirup grew into shipping International sales, and people from many countries found their way to Rt.66 and Funks Grove. Bikers groups, caravans of all kinds of groups traveling the Illinois portion or traveling the entire Rt.66.

Funks Grove is still going strong and looking forward to their 2023 season—March through August.

I will try the Bourbon Barrel-Aged Maple Sirup next year since I was too late this season. 

History by the Funk Family

Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. — Board of Directors, Route 66 Association of Illinois, 2013-15

Lost Towns of Illinois - Shermanville, Illinois.

Shermanville was located three miles east of Goose Lake Prairie State Natural Area in Will County. It was a single-industry village dependent on rich limestone deposits.

It took multiple sources to figure out the location of Shermanville. It would be at today's address; 6035 North Will Road at West Blodgett Road, Wilmington, Illinois. Town and the quarry were one mile south-south-east of the confluence of the Des Plaines and Kankakee Rivers. 41°22'34.2"N 88°14'56.4"W

What a great way to move tons of heavy limestone. That limestone proved to be laden with iron, and sales plummeted when buildings constructed of Shermanville's quarried rock started to rust from the rain. The town was abandoned faster than it was settled.

Francis Cornwall Sherman owned the property encompassing the limestone quarry, the town, and some surrounding acreage, hence the town's name. Sherman also built and owned the first three Sherman House Hotels in downtown Chicago.

Shermanville is a ghost town; only some crumbling foundations and a small cemetery remain as a reminder of its heyday.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Lost Towns of Illinois - Indian Creek Village, Illinois.

Indian Creek Village is within today's DeKalb County's Shabbona Lake State Park, located north of Ottawa and approximately 6 miles west of Illinois Route 23. The settlement was the site of the Indian Creek Massacre during the 1832 Black Hawk War. There are no residents.

During the Black Hawk War (1832), the Shabbona area, including Indian Creek Village, was in LaSalle County, Illinois. DeKalb County, Illinois, was founded on March 4, 1837.

A cropped image from the 1836 "County Map of the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
and the Michigan Territory," showing the entire La Salle County area.
View the Library of Congress 1836 Map.

The Indian Creek Massacre occurred on May 21, 1832, when a group of United States settlers in LaSalle County, Illinois, were attacked by a party of Indians. The massacre was sparked by the outbreak of the Black Hawk War, but it was not directly related to Sauk leader Black Hawk's conflict with the United States. Instead, the incident stemmed from a settler's refusal to remove a dam that jeopardized a food source for a nearby Potawatomi village. After the Black Hawk War began, between 40 and 80, Potawatomi and three Sauks attacked the settlement. Fifteen settlers, including women and children, were killed. Two young women kidnapped by the raiders were ransomed and released unharmed about two weeks later.

In the aftermath of the massacre, white settlers fled their homes for the safety of frontier forts and the protection of the militia. After the war ended, three Native men were arrested for the murders, but the charges were dropped after witnesses could not confirm that they had taken part in the massacre. Today, the site of the massacre is marked by memorials in Shabbona County Park in LaSalle County, about 14 miles north of Ottawa, Illinois.

The Indian Creek massacre stemmed from a dispute between U.S. settlers and a Potawatomi Native American village along Indian Creek in LaSalle County, Illinois. In the spring of 1832, a blacksmith named William Davis dammed the creek to provide power for his sawmill. 

Meaueus, the principal chief of the small Potawatomi village, protested to Davis that the dam prevented fish from reaching the village. Davis ignored the protests and assaulted a Potawatomi man who tried dismantling the dam. The villagers wanted to retaliate, but Potawatomi chiefs Shabbona and Waubonsie managed to keep the peace, convincing the villagers to fish below the dam.

Meanwhile, in April 1832, the Sauk leader named Black Hawk (The "Life of Black Hawk" as dictated by himself.") led a group of Sauks, Meskwakis, and Kickapoos known as the "British Band" across the Mississippi River into the U.S. state of Illinois. Black Hawk's motives were ambiguous, but he hoped to avoid bloodshed while settling on land ceded to the United States in a disputed 1804 treaty.

Black Hawk hoped that the Potawatomi people in Illinois would support him. In February 1832, he invited the Potawatomi to join him in a coalition against the United States. Although Potawatomi had grievances stemming from the expansion of the United States into Indian land, Potawatomi leaders feared that the United States had become too powerful to oppose by force. Potawatomi chiefs urged their people to stay neutral in the coming conflict, but, as in other tribes, chiefs did not have the authority or power to compel compliance. Potawatomi leaders worried that the tribe would be punished by supporting Black Hawk. At a council outside Chicago on May 1, 1832, Potawatomi leaders, including Billy Caldwell, "passed a resolution declaring any Potawatomi who supported Black Hawk, a traitor to his tribe." In mid-May, Potawatomi leaders told Black Hawk they would not aid him.

Hostilities in the Black Hawk War began on May 14, 1832, when Black Hawk's warriors soundly defeated Illinois militiamen at the Battle of Stillman's Run. Potawatomi chief Shabbona worried that Black Hawk's success would encourage Native attacks on American settlements and that Potawatomi would be held responsible. Soon after the battle, Shabbona, his son, and his nephew rode out to warn nearby American settlers that they were in danger. Many people heeded the warnings and fled to Ottawa for safety, but William Davis, the settler who had built the controversial dam, decided to stay. Davis convinced some of his neighbors that danger was not imminent. Twenty-three people remained at the Davis settlement, including the Davis family, the Hall family, the Pettigrew family, and several other men.

On May 21, 1832, a party of about forty to eighty Potawatomi attacked the Davis house. Three Sauks from Black Hawk's Band accompanied the Potawatomi. It was late afternoon when the inhabitants at the settlement saw the group of Native American warriors approach the cabin, vault the fence and sprint forward to attack. Several men and boys worked in the fields and the blacksmith's shop when the attack began. Several men who rushed to the house during the attack were killed, but six young men escaped the slaughter by fleeing. In all, fifteen settlers were killed and scalped. "The men and children were chopped to pieces," writes historian Kerry Trask, "and the dead women were hung by their feet," and their bodies mutilated in ways too gruesome for contemporary observers to record in writing.

Most modern scholars do not name the leader of this attack. According to historian Patrick Jung, the attack was led by the Potawatomi man who had been assaulted at the dam by Davis. Still, Jung did not identify this Potawatomi by name. Historians Kerry Trask and John Hall identified the man who had been assaulted as Keewassee. Still, they did not specifically describe him as taking part in the attack, nor did they name a leader of the attack. Historian David Edmunds wrote that the attack was led by Toquame and Comee, two Potawatomi warriors. According to Jung, however, Keewasse, Toquame, and Comee were three Sauk warriors who accompanied the Potawatomi during the attack.

In 1872, amateur historian Nehemiah Matson wrote that the raid was led by a man named Mike Girty, supposedly a mixed-race son of Simon Girty. But a 1960 profile of Matson stated, "Because of his indiscriminate mixing of fact and legend, however, scholars generally discount his books as valid sources." In a 1903 book, Frank E. Stevens dismissed Matson's story, writing, "The statement by Matson that one Mike Girty was connected with the Indian Creek massacre is incorrect." Modern scholarly accounts of the Black Hawk War and the Indian Creek massacre were mentioned by Mike Girty.

Two young women from the settlement, Sylvia Hall (19) and Rachel Hall (17), were spared by the attackers and taken northwards. At one point, Sylvia fainted when she recognized that one of the warriors carried her mother's scalp. After an arduous journey of about 80 miles, they arrived at Black Hawk's camp. The Hall sisters were held for eleven days at Black Hawk's camp, where they were treated well. Black Hawk insisted that the three Sauks with the Potawatomi had saved the Hall sisters' lives in his memoirs dictated after the war. Black Hawk recounted:

They were brought to our encampment, and a messenger sent to the Winnebago, as they were friendly on both sides, to come and get them, and carry them to the whites. If these young men belonging to my Band had not gone with the Potawatomi, the two young squaws would have shared the same fate as their friends.

A Ho-Chunk chief named White Crow negotiated their release. Like some other area Ho-Chunks, White Crow was trying to placate the Americans while clandestinely aiding the British Band. U.S. Indian agent Henry Gratiot paid a ransom for the girls of ten horses, wampum, and corn. The Hall sisters were released on June 1, 1832.

The Indian Creek massacre was one of the Black Hawk War's most famous and well-publicized incidents. The killings triggered panic in the white population nearby, and people abandoned settlements and sought refuge inside frontier forts, such as Fort Dearborn in Chicago.

On May 21 or 22, the people in Chicago, including those who had fled, dispatched a company of militia scouts to ascertain the situation along the Chicago-Ottawa trail. The detachment, under the command of Captain Jesse B. Brown, came upon the mangled remains of the 15 victims at Indian Creek on May 22. They buried the dead and continued to Ottawa, where they reported their gruesome discovery. As a result, the Illinois militia used the event to draw more recruits from Illinois and Kentucky.

After the war, three Indians were charged with murder for the Indian Creek massacre and warrants were issued at the LaSalle County Courthouse for Keewasee, Toquame, and Comee. The charges were dropped when the Hall sisters could not identify the three men as part of the attacking party. In 1833, the Illinois General Assembly passed a law granting both Hall sisters 80 acres of land each along the Illinois and Michigan Canal as compensation and recognition for their hardships.

In 1877, William Munson, who had married Rachel Hall, erected a monument where the massacre's victims were buried. The memorial, located 14 miles north of Ottawa, Illinois, cost $700 to erect. In 1902, the area was designated as Shabbona Park, and $5,000 was appropriated by the Illinois legislature for the erection and maintenance of a new monument. On August 29, 1906, a 16-foot granite monument was dedicated in a ceremony attended by four thousand people. Shabbona County Park, separate from Shabbona Lake State Park in DeKalb County, is located in northern LaSalle County, west of Illinois Route 23.

Indian Creek Massacre and Captivity of Hall Girls, pub 1915, 133 pages.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.