Early Naperville College Days

North Central College celebrates its 150th Anniversary in November. Originally founded as Plainfield College by the regional Evangelical Association, the school moved to Naperville in 1870, attracted by access to the railroad and some funding deals by the city.

Women as well as men were both students and faculty, but there were limits to the college’s progressiveness.

Local young people in those first Naperville classes included Guy Ellis Sabin and Hattie Peaslee. Hattie’s father served as DuPage County Coroner and operated a store on Chicago Avenue in the building just to the east of the old red Rosebud building.

The following are some excerpts from Guy’s diary while he was attending North Central College:

February 28, 1871: Went up to the depot at 2 o’clock to give a letter to Fred. Pres. Smith was there; can’t tell what he will say, as it was in study hours; expect a lecture.

April 5, 1871: Commenced school today in earnest. Prof. gave us 8 pages in Geometry. Smith gave us a lesson in Virgil. My book cost $1.10. Paid for my scholarships this noon, $6.00. Fred B. gave Hattie a cigar. She said she would smoke it.

January 30, 1873: Mary was called up before the “faculty” today for going to a dance last week. They sent away Hattie Peaslee. Prof. Heidner came up this p.m. to see the folks. The Faculty is thinking of expelling her.

The Mary mentioned above was Guy’s sister and her diary completes his college career with this entry:

Next fall he went back to College and boarded at Ellsworth with Wallace Bush. We drove to Naperville first year after leaving, and attended commencement, and had a picnic at Butterfield Lake.

“Studious” Guy married fellow student, Nannie Sevier, but unfortunately was killed at age 35 while responding as a volunteer fireman. “Wild” Hattie settled down enough to marry W.E. Moore and helped him pursue his Regenerator Furnace patent.

Even Earlier College Days

Just after North Central celebrates their 150th birthday, Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois will be celebrating their 175th starting in January. Like North Central College, Knox was built on a religious foundation, in this case Presbyterians and Congregationalists.

George Washington Gale of New York graduated from Union College and was later ordained in the St. Laurence Presbytery, He started as a preacher, but became increasingly interested in higher education. Gale experimented with manual labor training by offering to educate young men in exchange for their labor. The experiment was such a success that he incorporated the Oneida Institute in 1827.

The manual labor training plan was expanded and by 1836, Gale released his "Circular and Plan" for a "prairie college" in Illinois. His town, Galesburg, was built around the college and by 1837, Knox Manual Labor College was admitting its first students.

Sylvanus Ferris was a close friend of Gale and a great supporter of his educational vision, helping to make the college a reality. Syrvanus' grandson, George Washington Gale Ferris, was obviously named after this friend of the family, although he moved from Galesburg by the time he was five years old. George Ferris became pretty well-known himself in later years, debuting an invention of his at the 1893 Columbian Exhibition called the Ferris Wheel.

Where History Is Happening

World War II Days

Saturday, September 24
11:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Sunday, September 25
11:00 AM - 4:00 PM

A tribute to America's veterans and the largest World War II re-enactment in North America with more than 800 soliders including dozens of tanks and WWII vintage military vehicles. Narrated field battles with pyrotechnics, village skirmishes, demonstrations and displays of 1940s military and civilian life, military vendors and a USO-style dance on Saturday Night. On Saturday Bob Persinger will provide a talk on his eye witness account of the liberation of concentration camps in the Courtyard Room.

Historic Cemetery Walk at Bluff City Cemetery, Elgin

Sunday, September 25
11:00 AM - 3:30 PM

An autumn tradition in the Fox Valley, the Society presents the Elgin Cemetery Walk on the fourth Sunday in September. Visitors to scenic Bluff City Cemetery are guided to gravesites of "former" residents, portrayed by actors in period costumes, who share something of their lives and times. Among them may be a founding pioneer or early doctor, a war hero or crafty politician, a teacher or banker. The cast changes each year. These vignettes provide a glimpse of Elgin's rich heritage through the lives of its citizens. Buy tickets online.

Presentation and Needle Felting Workshop at Ellwood House

Saturday, September 24
2:00 PM

Natasha Lehrer will present an engaging talk about the founding of her fiber arts studio, Esther’s Place. The presentation will be followed by a hands-on workshop on needle felting. The lecture is free and open to the public. The cost of the workshop is $10.00 (payable at the time of the workshop—approximately 3:00pm).

The Pioneers of Pioneer Park

While it was hard to get to during the Washington Street construction, Pioneer Park is now back to welcoming visitors for biking, strolling and picnicking.

Even if you’ve only driven by and never stopped to explore, you probably noticed the stone monument commemorating the pioneer on whose land the park is situated.

Bailey Hobson did some farming in Indiana and Kendall County before he moved his young family to the banks of the DuPage River in 1830. They were the first people of European descent to settle in what would later be designated as DuPage County. The Scotts and the Hawleys arrived a little earlier, but their land lay over the border in Will County.

Hobson built a grist mill for grinding flour, which proved so popular, he also wound up running a tavern and inn out of his home. Farmers from all around would drive their oxen carts full of grain to the Hobson farm and line up for their turn to have their grain ground into flour. Waiting made an excellent social occasion as well!

Mills were housed in three story buildings to accommodate the machinery and the process. If you have never seen how a mill works, check out the old Graue Mill which dates from the same era for an in-depth look.

Bailey Hobson died in 1850 and his widow in 1884. The property was later farmed by
other families and eventually acquired by the DuPage County Forest Preserve District due to the efforts of four local chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Downers Grove, Glen Ellyn, Wheaton and Naperville.

In 1929 the park was “dedicated with grateful reverence to the pioneer men and women of DuPage County” with a bronze plaque mounted between Hobson’s mill stones, all that was left of his grist mill. The bronze plaque was stolen during World War II and was replaced at a rededication in 1952.

As Naperville grew, her boundaries were pushed out farther into unincorporated areas and eventually enveloped the old Hobson farm.

Now that Bailey Hobson’s land is within city limits, you could argue that he was actually the first settler of Naperville since he made his home on the DuPage River nearly a year before Joseph Naper arrived!

Naperville 180 Years Ago This Week

While an exact date is not recorded, Joseph Naper most likely arrived at the banks of the DuPage River with his family and friends within a few days of July 15 in the year 1831.

It was a Friday with the new moon approaching its first quarter. Spring had been late, wet and cold, much like this past spring. If you were to walk out onto a bit of prairie right now, you’d see the same kind of flowers blooming that Naper’s settlers saw.

Ice on the Great Lakes that year had broken up later than normal which delayed sailing for several weeks. Naper’s schooner, the Telegraph, didn’t set out from New York until the end of May and didn’t arrive at Fort Dearborn until July.

The previous winter, Joseph and his brother John had contracted to have 10 acres cleared and a log house built so the small band of families, oxen and wagons did have a specific destination as they trekked for three days from the Lake Michigan shoreline.

Naper brought with him the iron works for a sawmill so the community could build proper clapboard houses, but that first house was a more primitive log construction.

Some contemporary sources say it was a double cabin, perhaps the family home attached to a public trading post with a roofed porch shared between them. The Homestead Park now being built on the site will outline the foundations of both the trading post and the original log house.

The park will also show where Naper built his New England-style clapboard house in 1833. That home was torn down fifty years later when his son Mark built a third home on the site, reusing the timbers from the 1833 construction. The foundation of Mark’s house will also be outlined.

The new park will serve as an interpretive center now as well as protection for tomorrow’s archeological treasures. The Heritage Society chose to leave much of the site undisturbed for future Napervillians to explore.