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While a few traffickers, trappers and explorers, had visited the region at an earlier date, to Captain Daniel Wright may be fairly accorded the honor of having been the pioneer settler in what is now Lake County. His log cabin, erected in 1834, was the first habitation within its borders intended as a permanent home. [Note-In the Waukegan Weekly Gazette of June 21, 1851, appears the statement that Lake County "was first settled in 1833," etc., but no details as to persons or places are mentioned. It is believed that the only whites in the county prior to 1834 were trappers and traders, and in no true sense "settlers."]
Captain Wright was born in Rutland, Vermont, June 6, 1778, and was the son of a Revolutionary soldier. He served in the Vermont militia for several years, attaining his title of Captain. June 6, 1803, he married Miss Ruth Todd. His immediate ancestors were pioneers in Vermont, and he in turn became a pioneer, settling first near Mount Vernon, Ohio. In 1834 he determined to again migrate and in the early spring came, on horseback and alone, to the Illinois country. Charmed with the beauty and evident fertility of what he saw in this region he halted close beside the Des Plaines River, and on its western bank constructed a log cabin, and wrote to his wife and children, telling them to come to the new home and how and where to find it. The letter was mailed in Chicago, the nearest postoffice. He had reached this spot in May, and by August his home was up and his family, driving two pairs of oxen and leading a cow, had arrived. There was an Indian village two miles up the river, at or very near the present site, of Half Day village. The Captain made friends with the natives and was not molested. Early settlers describe his house as a log cabin, the roof covered with shakes. For a time the ground formed its only floor.
This house stood on the northwest quarter of Section 26, in the present township of Vernon. Its site was ideal. To the westward stretched a vast tract of fertile prairie. To the eastward, across the river, was a virgin forest. Captain Wright was not a typical "young pioneer, for he was at this time about fifty-six years of age and had a family of seven children, some of whom had grown to manhood and womanhood. But he was strong of arm and resolute of purpose. The house completed, he cut a quantity of hay, built some sheds, and gathered together a few supplies.
Misfortunes quickly came to the daring pioneer. The long overland journey had been a severe tax upon some of the family. The season was wet, and in camping out they had suffered in health. Once, in crossing a deep, unbridged stream, they narrowly escaped drowning. Some members of the family were ill upon their arrival. Daniel B. Wright, the younger son, aged six years, died September 7, 1834, and the faithful mother, Mrs. Ruth Wright, passed away but three days later and in less than a month after arriving at the new home. In October following a prairie fire swept down upon them, destroying the hay that had been gathered for the winter, and the sheds intended to house the stock. The house and its meager furniture escaped. It being too late in the season to secure a new supply of good hay the Captain went out to the distant, unburned prairie and gathered up a few wagon loads of frosted grass. Upon this and by browsing in the timber the cattle managed to survive the winter. Just a year from the death of the mother another son, a young man of twenty-two passed away. The bodies of the three members of the family, buried near the little home, together with that of an unknown neighbor, were a few years since disinterred and laid to rest in Half Day cemetery.
Captain Wright had many interesting experiences. His life was full of hardship. Once, in February, he went ten miles for a doctor in the night. There had been a thaw, and the river, which was very high and running full of ice, had to be crossed both going and coming. It was at great peril and by a very narrow escape that the Captain and the faithful physician made the passage.
In January, 1836, Miss Caroline Wright, a daughter of the Captain was married to William Whigam, Hiram Kennicott officiating. Mr. Whigam died about three years later, leaving two children, one of whom, William Whigam, Jr., has always resided on the farm where Captain Wright first settled. It is worthy of note that in the first house erected in the county occurred the first death and the first marriage, the first justice of the peace ever elected in the county officiating at the wedding ceremony, and, despite the constant changes going on, the original homestead of the first pioneer is owned and occupied by his grandson.
On one occasion, learning that provisions were cheaper there than in Chicago, Captain Wright made a long trip to Ottawa only to find that the flour had been so wet as to require pounding or chopping in order to get it out of the barrel, and that the pork was so rancid as to be unfit for family use. However, he brought some of it home and, knowing that his Indian neighbors were not over particular regarding their diet, he traded it to them for fish and game, thinking it a good joke. As the Indians seemed to like it quite as well as though it had been number one in quality he concluded that his action was entirely legitimate.
Notwithstanding the hardships endured and misfortunes encountered Captain Wright lived until December 30, 1873, when, at the ripe old age of ninety-five years, he was laid to rest in Half Day cemetery, his funeral being attended by a vast concourse of people who gathered to do honor to the memory of the first settler in Lake County.
Captain Wright was not long without white neighbors. During 1834 Theron Parsons, Hiram Kennicott and William Cooley made claims in the neighborhood. Mr. Parsons had landed in Chicago during the Indian troubles in 1832. With a brother he went to DuPage County as soon as it was deemed safe. The brother located near Downer's Grove, but Theron went north to look for land. Hon. H. W. Blodgett, who came to DuPage County with his parents in 1831, has always been of the opinion that Mr. Parsons settled at Half Day village as early as 1833, or a year prior to the coming of Daniel Wright; but early settlers still living in the neighborhood state that Mr. Parsons' first claim was a few miles farther south, and outside the boundaries of this county. In a letter written by Seth Washhurn in 1853 and published in a work edited by Hon. E. M. Haines, entitled, "Historical and Statistical Sketches of Lake County," Messrs. Parsons, Wright, Kennicott and Cooley are mentioned, in the order named, as the 1834 settlers in Vernon.
Mr. Parsons had a family and was a man of Good education and high character. For several years he kept a "temperance tavern" at Half Day, but later twice took up the role of pioneer, removing to Minnesota and then to California.
Hiram Kennicott had studied law in the office of Millard Fillmore, afterward President of the United States. He had some means and was an energetic, public-spirited citizen. He built the first store in the county and filled it with goods, and two years later another store at Libertyville; was elected as the first justice of the peace; erected and set in operation a sawmill and a grist-mill; and opened up a farm. Later he removed to Cook County.
William Cooley located farther north, near Libertyville. He had some means, and dealt to some extent in cattle, buying oxen from drovers who came from central Illinois, breaking them, and selling them to the settlers. Tiring of this rugged pioneer life he moved away after a few years and was lost sight of.
Charles H. Bartlett came in the autumn of 1834 and made a claim on the river, south of Libertyville, but returned to Chicago for the winter. Selling his first farm, he built a home on the west bank of Diamond Lake in 1842, in which he spent the remaining years of a long life. He was one of the first County Commissioners, and always greatly interested in public matters. His trip west from New Hampshire was made partly on foot and partly by stage. He prided himself on always keeping a horse in pioneer days, although, as was the case with his neighbors, he used oxen in breaking the prairie. In this work a 28-inch plow was used, and from six to eight pairs of cattle were required to turn the wide furrow. An uncle, James Bartlett, followed him west in 1836, locating near Libertyville.
Richard and Ransom Steele came to the county in 1834, made claims and erected a house about two and one-half miles south of Libertyville. Returning east for their families in the early winter, they occupied the new home in February, 1835. In this house, June 20, 1835, Albert B. Steele was born. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Steele, and was the first white child born-within the limits of what is now Lake County. Davis C. Steele, a cousin to Richard and Ransom Steele, came to Lake County in 1835. Moses Putney also made a claim in the same neighborhood in 1834, as did Andrew S. Wells.
Jacob Miller came out from Chicago in 1834 and built a sawmill near the mouth of Mill Creek, not far from the town line now separating Warren from Newport; went back to the city for the winter, and returned to the mill early in 1835 He also erected a flouring mill, the first in the county, as far as can be ascertained.
William Green prospected on the east side of the river, in Libertyville, in 1834, but did not permanently locate there until 1837.
Jesse Wilmot built a home in Deerfield in 1834, and "bached" it for a year. Lyman, his brother, spent the summer with him, then returning east, where he remained until 1840, after which, until his death, he resided in this county.
Joseph Flint located a claim in Cuba township, probably in 1834, which was occupied by his bachelor son, Amos Flint, who died in 1837 or 1838. The log house, which was jointly occupied by an aunt, Mrs. Grace Flint, and V. H. Freeman and family, burned during their first winter, leaving them in a pitiable condition. Timber was plenty, however, and but little time elapsed before a temporary shelter replaced the burned structure. Flint Creek, in Cuba, still bears the name of the pioneer of that township. Joseph Flint is understood to have returned east immediately after locating the claim. Thomas Ballard, who came to Vernon in 1835, also lost a house by fire, but before his family or furniture had been moved in.
It is probably true that Captain Wright's was the only family to spend the entire winter of 1834-5 in Lake County, although it is claimed by William E. Sunderlin that his uncle Peleg Sunderlin, and family spent that season in their log home in the York House neighborhood northwest of Waukegan.
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