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PLACES CONNECTED WITH AMERICAN WHEATONS continued |
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| WHEATON, ILLINOIS From The Jesse Wheaton Family sent by Ralph WHEATON of F E Wheaton Lumber Company 1993 Our Early Settlement Architects of houses and builders of cities both must begin with solid foundations. As Wheaton's earliest New England settlers laid the foundations for their pioneer homes, they also put in place the cornerstones on which the city itself would grow. Illinois was the West 125 years ago, a land of opportunity that beckoned with fertile farm land, vast expanses of rock-free prairie, and cheap land prices. The Black Hawk War had recently ended and Indians were no longer a threat. Settlers could make their way from the East on the newly opened Erie Canal. Chicago boasted of a newly built harbor and a population of some 4,000. Erastus Gary, a friend and neighbor of the Wheaton family in Pomfret, Connecticut, had come west in 1831. In search of good farmland and ever mindful of where a yet-to-be-built railroad might run. Gary headed straight west from the swampy city of Chicago and claimed 640 acres of land near Warrenville. To hedge his bet on the railroad's future location, Gary also bough five or six hundred acres of land northeast of Warrenville. Eventually he built a mill at the intersection near today's routes 38 and 59. Gary made several trips back to Connecticut persuading family and friends to join him in Illinois; Warren L and Jesse C Wheaton followed him. Warren Wheaton, a 25-year-old school teacher, left Pomfret in May 1837. He travelled to Chicago by train, canal boat, and steamer. He then walked the thirty miles to Gary's claim. By the spring of 1838, Warren was ready to stake his own claim. Under the preemption law, a settler could claim as many acres as he could care for and reserve them until the land was surveyed and sold. Wheaton claimed 640 acres near present-day Naperville and Roosevelt roads by plowing a furrow around them. An apprenticed carpenter, Jesse C Wheaton, arrived in Chicago about a month after his older brother. He worked his trade in Chicago a few months, drifted as far west as St. Charles, and by the fall of 1837 joined his brother at Gary's mill. Later he claimed 300 acres of land adjoining Warren Wheaton's to the west. When the Wheaton lands were surveyed, they paid the government $1.25 an acre and received deeds dated in 1844, 1845 and 1846, signed by Presidents John Tyler and James K Polk. Wheaton lands, on both sides of Roosevelt Road from Naperville Road to West Street, combined with Gary's land adjoining on the west to become the community of Wheaton. As important as the land the Wheatons claimed, however, was the land they were to eventually give away. In 1848, the Wheaton brothers and Erastus Gary gave the railroad about 3 miles of right-of-way. Grateful railroad officials named the depot Wheaton, and the Wheaton brothers secured the railroad for "their town." The Wheaton brothers platted twelve blocks of land in 1850 to build a community around their railroad station. They gave the lots away to those willing to build on them immediately. By 1853, the lots had been surveyed and the formal plat of the town of Wheaton was filed with the county. By 1860, Warren Wheaton donated land to the Illinois Institute, which was renamed Wheaton College in his honour. The Wheaton brothers led the successful campaign to move the DuPage county seat from Naperville to Wheaton in 1867. Naperville had been named the county seat in 1838 when DuPage County was carved out of Cook County. An initial attempt to relocate to Wheaton's more central and railroad-serviced location had failed in 1857. After waiting the required ten years, the matter was again brought to a vote. The referendum passed 1,686 to 1,635 with extensive campaigning by leading citizens, and land for the courthouse was donated. Jesse and Warren Wheaton were also active in state, township and local government. Warren Wheaton served in the Illinois General Assembly in 1848 and 1849. Instrumental in establishing townships in Illinois, he served as the first Milton Township supervisor in 1850. By 1858, the citizens, who now numbered 700, were tired of their area being called "Wheaton's Mud Hole." In order to improve the streets and sidewalks, they drew up a charter for the incorporation of Wheaton as a village. Warren Wheaton was elected first village president. Early records are filled with street matter: sloughs were drained, ditches dug, sidewalks laid, and streets graveled, but it took a full twenty years for the community to pull itself out of the mud. For some unknown reason, no village records were kept during the Civil War period, In March 1869, a second town charter was approved and the town limits enlarged. A police department was created in 1882 and the following year citizens formed a volunteer fire department. Faced with the mounting need for water, sewer and street improvements, and hampered by village bonding limitations, the citizens voted to reincorporate as a city on March 31, 1890. Judge Elbert H Gary, the son of Erastus Gary, became the first mayor. In 1917, the city switched from the aldermanic-mayoral form of city government to the commissioner-mayor form, which was again changed in 1955 to the present city manager-council structure of government. The prairie homes built by Warren and Jesse Wheaton still stand. The cornerstones laid by these founding fathers - the railroad, the county seat, Wheaton College, and city government - have also proved a firm foundation for the continued growth of the city of Wheaton. |