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Please Don't Quote Me

By Caralee Aschenbrenner

PART II – Neighborhoods can give us an anchor when we drift away as our lifestyles change, as most of us have. Names of areas and places vary widely. But familiar to the ear of the one-time or long-time resident, past or present. Do you say, or an acquaintance say when asked, “Where they’re from,” “Oh, I’m from down around Lover’s Lane, or Lover’s Spring, Cat Tail Slough, McFarland’s Bay or Miller’s Hollow, Arnold’s Landing

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Perhaps, der Blumendahl or Duck’s misery out by the Stone Bridge or the south side of the Winnebago Swamp...” The list could go on and on.

There is disagreement, however, of just how the “Kingdom” got its long-time name. It’s in Lee County near Dixon but a place all its own. Its label could be positive or negative.

Aside from the ominous designation of “Devil’s Kingdom” it has a reputation of being so pretty that a preacher once compared it to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Without any other positive claim an event took place there which should become a historic spot for its importance. What occurred there changed the entire development of agriculture. But who knows about it? Almost no one.

In close proximity to that spot is a site where a very early French trader built a log cabin in 1822; Pierre LaSallier. Nearby was a large Indian village and one of their burial grounds. Foundation stones of the cabin were visible yet into the mid-twentieth century. It was said that it was the only trapper’s/trader’s post between Ft. Dearborn (Chicago) and the Mississippi River. The stone marker seen here is on the Lost Nation Road. It explains the site.

Stephen Mack who finally settled near Rockton, Illinois on the Pecatonica River is thought to have preceded LaSallier. A trapper’s village is replicated at Macktown and Rendezvous’ are held there annually recreating that era.

The first “white” settler of permanency was Joseph Crawford who became a leader during the pioneer era due to his knowledge, wisdom and abilities. He surveyed much of the region and later became a mayor of Dixon.

Early, too, in the neighborhood were the three Chamberlin brothers from Vermont with each of them building a substantial stone house on a creek where a mill was raised by each.

Other trades usually sprang up around mill sites such as barrel makers (coopers); blacksmiths for shoeing horses, repairing wagons, even building them at times. Many household utensils were the product of a smith’y talents. He was the go-to guy.

At Cyrus Chamberlin’s busy site, a foundry was put-together by Harvey Herrick who’d formerly been at Grand Detour. It was Herrick’s young boy who is given the blame for being such an imp that he’d always pick fights with Chamberlin’s boy. The two had a grudge for the other and so fierce were they that “Devil’s Kingdom” resulted.

Reference goes on to claim that in the Kingdom there were many who broke the spirit of the Sabbath with profanity, gambling and racing horses or betting on them.

That profane way of life is difficult to imagine today but apparently at one time Ill-will and sin were rampant.

Despite the character of the area, the landscape was sweet; its soil black and heavy, rich and fertile. It would certainly be a test for the Vermont blacksmith over in Grand Detour to try out the plow he’d been experimenting with for many weeks. One day in 1837 he announced “this may be it” after laying dozens of faces on the plow he’d been trying to get to “scour,” come clean, that is, the earth rolling off, curling back onto the furrow so the man guiding the plow wouldn’t have to stop and push the soil off with a stick or some whittled board or his hand.

The few witnesses to John Deere’s first time with the polished plow face would have no idea of just how magnificent this event was ... Oh, yes, their heart’s must have swelled at how it would help them in their everyday chore but no imagining how the thing would be used world-wide.

The on-lookers were said to have exclaimed that the plow “sang” as it sliced through the rich Northwestern Illinois earth. It happened here in our neighborhood, over in the Kingdom.

In 1937, a hundred years after the first polished plow blade cut the mid west’s earth, a ceremony occurred to mark the site with a monument that listed the details of that most important day. Nearly a hundred seventy-five years ago ... A wink in the course of history but an event that changed agricultural right under our noses.

The marker as disappeared and no one knows what happened to it. Don’t we Northwestern Illinoisans need to do better than that?

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