Naperville 150 Years Ago

The longest list of Naperville men who died during military service comes from the Civil War, the 150th anniversary of which we are commemorating this year. While the war was certainly a bloody conflict, many deaths were actually the result of disease, infection and starvation, rather than the battlefield.

Although DuPage County was represented in several companies, the 105th Illinois Volunteers included a large number of local men. That regiment lost 236 men overall, 187 of which died of disease.

The roll call of those who died during the war was read on Memorial Day just before the parade. Naperville residents may have recognized many of the names that are part of our history.

Lieutenant William Porter died in Georgia. Sergeant Samuel Kellogg and DeWitt Stevens were both killed at the battle of Chickasaw Bayou.

Also a casualty of that battle was 2nd Lt. George Naper, the son on John and Betsey Naper. George arrived with original settlers of Naperville in 1831 as a small child. He was a thirty-five year old husband who had already buried a child when he answered the call to serve.

Other local men did return from the War to become pillars of our community, including Adelbert Van Oven, Eli Ditzler, Alex Riddler, Levi Shaeffer, William Fry, Willard Scott, Jr. and Merritt Hobson.

David Givler, who enlisted as “a musician,” returned to start The Clarion newspaper. His brother Solomon, however, died in Kentucky.

John Nelson Naper, George’s twenty-two year old cousin, was discharged with injuries, but he did return to Naperville to marry and father children who gave us the Naper descendents we know today.

Where History Is Happening

Settlement Sundays at Naper Settlement
Summer Sundays
through August
1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Each Sunday, admission to the museum not only includes free sundaes with do-it-yourself toppings and root beer floats, but also a variety of hands-on activities, games, stories, presentations, entertainment and guest presentations. Play old-fashioned games, tour the historic Victorian mansion, see the "Brushstrokes of the Past" exhibit and visit the hands-on activity center, the History Connection.
Free sundaes and root beer floats are served from 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm.

Heritage Garden Days at Midway Village
July 30, 2011 - July 31, 2011
Saturday and Sunday, 11:00 am to 4:00 pm
Due to the success of our 2010 Heritage Garden Day event, this event has been expanded to two days for 2011. Enjoy our different Heritage Gardens and Prairies while in full bloom at Midway Village Museum. Join us for two days of tours, presentations, recipes, crafts and plant sales, all centered on historic gardens and landscapes. Make-and-take garden crafts, learn how grandmother made rhubarb wine and get tips on starting your own heirloom garden or prairie...and much more. Activites will be led by local University of Illinois Extension Master Gardeners, Midway Village Museum education staff and other area garden experts.
Cost is $8 for adults and $5 for children (3 to 17). Midway Village Museum members are always free.

Antique Tool Show and Sale at Garfield Farm
Sunday, August 7, 2011
9:00 am - 1:00 pm.
Antique Tool Show & Sale
Members of the Midwest Tool Collectors Association and the Early American Industries Association display, trade and sell antique and collectable tools.
$6/$2.

The Mill on Mill Street

Many of us who live in Naperville don’t give much thought to how Mill Street was named since it seems self-explanatory. On further reflection, however, you start to wonder. What kind of mill? Where exactly was it?

When Joseph Naper headed out to Illinois, he always intended to found a colony rather than a single family homestead. He brought with him on his schooner the iron works for a saw mill and building the mill was one of the settlers’ first projects, completed by the following spring.

Log cabins and log houses were considered temporary dwellings, a quick way to get shelter, but hardly fitting abodes for New Englanders. Proper clapboard houses were planned from the beginning and a saw mill was needed to saw the lumber to build them.

Naper’s home, which was a log house at first, was built on the corner of Jefferson and Mill Streets. It’s an empty lot right now, but soon it will be a park with garden plants indicating where the house, cistern, privy and other features were. Beneath the garden, the land will lie undisturbed for future archeological excavation.

The land slopes away from the home site down to the DuPage River where the mill was built to harness the river for powering the machinery. Folks look at the meandering DuPage today and wonder “how could that little stream cut logs?”

As you can see by the map, the settlers dammed up the river to create a mill pond so they could control the water. The water turned the wheel, the wheel activated belts and gears, the gears operated the saw blade, and lumber was cut to build houses for the settlers.

The few log homes that the pioneers started with were either used as outbuildings or were swallowed up by new construction built around them. When the Naper Settlement outdoor museum wanted to display an early settler’s log home, they couldn’t find one left intact in the area and had to import a log house from another county.

The Other Mill on Mill Street

A grist mill for grinding grain was also constructed in Naper’s Settlement. It was built soon after the saw mill but apparently there was some serious concern as to how they were to create such a thing since they had no mill stones for grinding.

Robert Nelson Murray, who was a teenager at the time, tells us that the grist mill was built due to the efforts of Christopher Paine. Paine, who was homesteading in the area before the Naper group arrived, was apparently a prairie-style MacGyver since “To him the whole settlement looked for devising ways and means to accomplish ends.”

“He laid the case before Mr. Paine. He scratched his head and ‘his jaws wagged with increased rapidity while he kept up an incessant expectoration,’ (says Mr. Murray), and exclaimed ‘By Jinks, I can
make them’(the stones. He then selected two good bowlders from the grove, and hammered and pecked on them till he had fashioned them
into upper and nether mill stones.”

The mill was used communally by all the settlers and was powered not by the river but by each farmer’s oxen, the same ones they used to pull the wagon of wheat or corn to the mill.

What happened to Christopher Paine’s mill stones is unknown, but if you go to Pioneer Park on Washington Streets, you’ll find Bailey Hobson’s stones from his grist mill which was just downriver.

Eventually both grist mills as well as the saw mill ceased operation. The mill pond receded and the DuPage River was allowed to flow naturally again. Its major application now is to support ducks and the occasional canoe!

Where History Is Happening

Links to some upcoming local events:

Annual Fort De Chartres Rendezvous
Saturday and Sunday
June 4 and 5, 2011
9 am - 5 pm
One of the largest in rendezvous events in the country occurs annually at this historic fort. 18th century crafts, food, music, 1000's of historically dressed participants, flintlock musket and rifle competition, cannon and mortar competition, traders and more.
Small parking fee
For more information call 618-284-7230

Passenger Train Historical Society Spring Picnic
June 10, 11 & 12th, 2011
Illinois Railway Museum in Union
Activities include: Passenger train photographs, slide shows on Friday evening, Picnic lunch Saturday afternoon on Museum grounds, Ride and visit the historical cars, exhibits and displays of passenger train history at the Illinois Railway Museum, Attend Railroadiana Train Show in nearby St. Charles, IL on Saturday and Sunday, Field trip via car pool on Saturday afternoon to the BNSF mainline near Naperville, IL for trackside views of the Amtrak’s Southwest Chiefs, California Zephyrs and Metra commuter trains, Historic discussions about passenger trains throughout the event.
RSVP requested

Midsommer Celebration at Erlander Museum
Saturday, June 18, 2011
9:00 am - 4:00 pm.
Location: Erlander Museum, 404 S. Third Street, Rockford, IL
Midsummer FunCome and enjoy a fun filled day with us as we celebrate the Swedish tradition of Midsummer (Midsommar). You will enjoy great foods like open-face and meatball sandwiches, hotdogs, strawberries and ice cream, coffee cake, Swedish pankakes and more. Numerous vendors will be displaying their talents and selling their wares. Our Swedish Historical park across the street from the museum will have continuous activities for children of all ages, including the game of Kubb throughout the day.