Mormon Beginnings in DuPage and Will Counties

On the twenty-sixth day of November in 1829 Pierce Hawley claimed a portion of Section 30 in Kendall County, Illinois. Since it included a large stand of trees, locals called it Hawley's Grove for a while until Pierce sold his property and it took on the new name of Holderman's Grove. Originally from Vermont, Pierce had a hard time staying put anywhere.

Early Illinois history is peppered with Hawley references. Juliette Kinzie from Chicago tells of staying the night in Hawley's home during a particularly grueling journey. Aaron Hawley, Pierce's brother, was one of the few casualties of the Black Hawk War. Several Hawleys are buried in Naperville, including Pierce's daughter and Joseph Naper's mother.

Stephen Scott was also an early Illinois settler, living on the DuPage River. His son Willard often traveled to Peoria and broke his journey at the Hawley's just as Juliette Kinzie did. While there, he took a shine to Pierce's daughter Caroline and asked to marry her. Father Pierce agreed, but Caroline thought a few hours' courtship was rushing things, so Willard continued on his way.

A couple of weeks later on the return trip, Willard stopped by the Hawley House again and Caroline agreed this time to marry him. They spent their wedding night, as Willard loved to relate, with "the sky for our ceiling -- the stars for our light," under a tree in Plainfield.

Willard and Caroline are both buried in Naperville, the town which they helped grow from its earliest beginnings.

Pierce lived for a time in Naperville as well, becoming a valued member of the Methodist community that Rev. Jesse Walker was developing in his mission to the Potawatomi. But somehow, Pierce heard of Joseph Smith's preaching. As his son later wrote: "Mother at this time felt as though Father had almost committed the unpardonable sin in leaving the Methodist Church and joining the Mormon Church as they was both good Methodist members, but Mother soon got over hurt bad feelings and united with the same church and was one with her husband in faith and doctrine."

Along with other Mormons, the Hawleys (minus Caroline and husband Willard) moved to Missouri, then Iowa and Wisconsin. In the aftermath of religious persecution in Nauvoo and Joseph Smith's subsequent death, many Mormons moved out of Illinois under varying leaders. Brigham Young of course took a group to Utah, but the Hawleys went with Lyman Wight to Texas.

The Texas community flourished for a while. Pierce was chosen to be an elder and his daughter Mary Hawley became one of Wight's plural wives. Eventually Pierce soured on Wight's Mormon Church and along with his wife and married children, he moved to Indian territory in Kansas and then Arkansas, finally coming to rest on August 16, 1858 in Cherokee Nation, Arkansas, where he is buried.

More on the Mormon Story

Local history books from DuPage and Will Counties and even Chicago are great resources to learn more about Pierce and Aaron Hawley, but much of Pierce Hawley's story is also recounted in the book Polygamy on the Pedernales; Lyman Wight's Mormon Villages in Antebellum Texas, 1845 to 1858 by Melvin C. Johnson.

Written around the time that the YFZ (Yearning for Zion) Ranch was in the news, the parallels are obvious. Lyman Wight was a charismatic yet not-mainstream-Mormon leader, much like Warren Jeffs. Wight's religious compound was in Texas, just like Jeffs'. Both men also advocated plural wives and marrying very young girls.

Wight's group collapsed from within due to unrest and disillusionment. About two thirds of Jeffs' group have returned to their Texas compound, although Jeffs himself is serving time in a Utah prison for arranging the marriage of a fourteen-year-old girl. He still faces trial in Texas and the announcement that the Utah Supreme Court will not block extradition hit the newspapers, strangely enough, last week on November 26, which is where this research started!

Where History Is Happening

Christmas at Klein Creek Farm
Saturday, December 4 1:30 pm
Sunday, December 5 3:30 pm
Join "Christmas on the Farm" for an old-fashioned celebration. Visit with Santa and climb into a sleigh to take a picture. Learn the origins of several holiday traditions, and experience Victorian Christmas activities. Stop by a warming fire for caroling and spice cookies. And explore the visitor center to see a re-creation of the farmstead in gingerbread and candy.
Activities are ongoing throughout the event, and registration is not required.

Victorian Valentine's Dinner Party
Sunday, February 13
Looking for something really special to give this holiday? How about tickets to a culinary fantasy, a Victorian Valentine's Dinner Party in an 1880s building in historic Aurora? Join the Aurora Historical Society and Chef Amaury Rosado for a 5-course feast with wine flights in the grand Victorian style, with music and florals of the period, at Chef Amaury's restaurant.

Tickets are $150 per person and include food, wine, tax and gratuity. $50 of each ticket is tax deductible as a gift to the Aurora Historical Society (which thanks you very much!).

Julmarknad Christmas Market at Bishop Hill
Saturday, December 4
Sunday, December 5
10:00 am - 5:00 pm
The holiday season will be opened the traditional
Swedish way during Julmarknad, or Christmas Market in Bishop Hill.
The free events' attractions include Swedish folk characters,
traditional Swedish holiday decorations and quality gifts for the
holidays to be purchased. A special holiday exhibit called "Going to Grandmas" will be on display in the Steeple Building including a holiday Lionel Train display on the first floor. Trains will be running Saturday 10 am to 3 pm and
Sunday; Noon to 3 pm.

October Lighthouse Collapse Lends New Meaning to “Fall”

In 1831, Chicago was still known as Fort Dearborn. Only three ships arrived that year – one of which was the Telegraph, bringing Joseph Naper and company – but the swampy little settlement was poised to be a boomtown.

Innkeeper Mark Beaubien built the first frame house that summer, an elegant improvement over the log cabins and wigwams that were its neighbors, but that was only the beginning. $5000 had been appropriated after a party of United States engineers recommended a lighthouse plan and building commenced in March of the same year.

The contractor for the project was Samuel Jackson or Johnson, depending on who’s memoirs you read. One of the stonemasons working on the construction was Stephen Downer, who was joined the following summer by his dad, Pierce. Pierce Downer later moved out to DuPage County and founded a little settlement that still bears his name – Downers Grove.

The walls of the lighthouse were three feet thick and by autumn the tower reached fifty feet high. Some of the citizens were concerned that the edifice seemed to lean a bit, but on October 30, Jackson took his detractors for a tour to the very top, a group that included “some ladies,” to show off how well-built the tower was.

But just a few hours later, Isaac Harmon wrote his brother, “about nine o`clock in the evening, down tumbled the whole work with a terrible crash and a noise like the rattling of fifty claps of thunder.” Mr. Jackson or Johnson said there must have been quicksand under the foundation, but Isaac and his neighbors were more inclined to believe “that it was all owing to the wretched manner in which it was built.”

Jackson started building again and the lighthouse was completed in 1832. It had a fourteen inch reflector that could be seen for up to seven miles away and had a bell as a fog warning signal. The illustration above shows this second lighthouse as it looked in 1857.

One of the light-house keepers, and in fact, the last keeper, was Mark Beaubien, who tried out many careers in young Chicago. He was in charge of the lighthouse in 1843 and again from 1855 until 1859. During some of those same years, he bought a house in DuPage County and operated a toll house along the Plank Road on the Naperville/Lisle Border, although his son seems to have been the actual toll collector.

Isaac Harmon lamented to his brother “we have had a flattener pass over the face of our prospects in Chicago. The light-house, that the day before yesterday stood in all its glory, the pride of this wondrous village, is now "doused." But Harmon needn’t have worried. This was only a minor setback in a town that has seen its share of rebuilding.

Chicago's Three Ships of 1831

When the Christmas carol "saw three ships come sailing in" they could have been singing about Chicago in 1831. While shipping was about to explode on the Great Lakes, in 1831 ships were still a rarity.

Chicago wasn't actually a city yet but a small village of log houses and wigwams squatting around Fort Dearborn. The fort, built originally in 1808, was burned to the ground during the War of 1812 by the native people in an attack known as the Fort Dearborn Massacre.

The fort was rebuilt in 1816 and used again by the military, but in the spring of 1831, the Napoleon arrived to remove the last of the troops. That was the first ship. In July, Joseph and John Naper's Telegraph brought settlers and supplies to the Chicago community. In November, Captain Stuart anchored the Marengo off shore in Lake Michigan for the last contact until winter was over.

The sailing season was ruled by ice on the Great Lakes, sometimes not breaking up until May. Captain Stuart was probably racing to get back to Detroit before the lakes froze. Meanwhile, Chicago started building their lighthouse again to be ready for spring's first schooner.