Please Don't Quote Me By Caralee Aschenbrenner Might Fenton be the "capitol city" of the peat bog realm? It certainly could be of the township of the same name, it's just south of Union Grove, the onset of the peat deposits. Fenton, the settlement, is on Fenton Road, south from Garden Plain Road, west from Morrison. Rock River is the township's southern border. Rock Creek cuts through it into Rock River in a "new" right-of-way obtained in 1880 when the important drainage projects were being worked up. Rock Creek, risiing in Carroll, is more than a mile from its original confluence with the river. The township was named for its first settler, Joseph Fenton, 1835, but first it was called "Eden" prior to

1852. It was an Eden because of its extremely rich soil, once swampland. Joe Fenton and John Freek had put claim to land there but soon were visited by a clique of men from Lyndon Township who said that the claim was theirs, in fact, everything they could see was theirs as spied from the tallest tree. And to git. Freek freaked out and got. Fenton, it's said, used the most "forceful" language and refused to go. And stayed. Perhaps because of his stubborness and daring the township was thus named for him.

Although the township is rural there were at least three settlements platted in it in the nineteenth century, they inspired by the railroads ... Pratt, Denrock and Fenton Center which tops the hill behind its post office (here).

The post office was first in Section 17, simply Fenton, 1870, while the village to grow up was Fenton Center, a market siding. At Fenton Center a creamery grew and of which history reported, would utilize the milk of 700 cows daily. But in 1910 it caught fire. Making that date noteworthy was the fact that the Morrison fire department was called and they made the twelve mile trip in less than a half hour in an all automobile caravan for the first time! The building was completely destroyed but the butter was rescued.

At one time several stores and businesses graced the trackside spot ... Gas stations, larger grocery, smiths, drug, shoe, harness and so forth, as well as the grain elevators which persist. As does "Payne's Grocery" which also houses the post office, one of those pleasant rural accomodations which unexpectedly pop up in travels about Northern Illinois. Long may it serve. The post office, the sign says, is at the rear.

Impressive-sized residences top the hill as does a church, etc. "Upper town" will surprise you, too, with its substance. First the peat beds in the distance, then the interesting farms and houses, landscapes along the way.

Picture this.. A wide stone fireplace with a slab of rock for a mantle and hearth too. A cheery fire burns, its flames brightening the corners of the small log cabin. Stacks of peat blocks are piled beside the face of the fireplace. An iron kettle hangs behind the flickering fire, the stew in it burbling appetizingly awaiting the chilled travelers soon to arrive by coach. As was said of a local inn, the hostelry was noted for its excellent table and its superior accomodations!

A slight snow dusts the landscape, filling the hedgerows which line the road as fencing as far as the eye could see. They better define the path, door to door, especially now in the dark when the only lights are the stars or the occasional oil lamp on windowsills, miles between.

Does your imaginary conjuring picture this as a scene in Ireland because of the mention of peat or hedgerow fence? It needn't be Ireland. It could be northern Illinois because peat beds have been a long time feature here, too, especially in Whiteside County though peat can be found in nearly every neighboring county as well.

For nearly one hundred fifty years at least, peat has been the object of commercial speculation in Whiteside. Because peat is similar to coal in composition, "possessing all its heat-producing qualities," it is only inferior in that more peat is needed to produce an equal amount of heat. But down there in Whiteside at one time peat was chaper than coal and considerably used. There was one problem with it ... Water.

Peat is formed over centries in sloughs and bogs or as the product of a one-time lake ... derived from buried mosses and plant matter. The Mississippi eons ago actually flowed over Whiteside County into Bureau County, its channel passing just west of Princeton, the Rock River flowing into it below there, too. Frequent, vast lakes covered the land leaving behind flattened meadows and peat bogs here and there.

To quote from "Self-Guided Tour of Whiteside County," by Carolyn Keller, which says "At the end of each glacial period there were years of melting. As the ice melted large volumes of water carried sand, mud and gravel, filling the old channels and covering the flood plains. Where the flow of meltwater was stopped by the cold weather of winter, strong west winds carried the sand and silt for miles. The windblown silt, loess (luss) blanketed the country north of the Rock River, thinning out as it blew to the east. Near the western bluffs of the county, the loess is more than twenty feet thick, thinning to about five feet in the Sterling area. The sandy sediment was deposited south of the Rock River. Sand dunes accumulated and moved across the landscape until stabilized by vegetation." (Thanks, Carolyn.)

Pioneers, even if not recently from the Old Country so more familiar with peat, had certainly heard of it or knew of its uses. Thrifty, they thought it should be put to use but how to rid it of its water content. Perhaps in individual cases it was pressed out but how on a large, commercial scale? It would be labor intensive.

West of Morrison a few miles in Union Grove Township in which are the largest of the county's peat beds they are approximately six miles long and a mile wide and thought to be twenty feet deep, according to the nineteenth century county history ... "An inexhaustible and excellent quality of peat."

The "Cattail" is seen on this 1877 Whiteside County map, arrows in Union Grove Township the peat beds.

At the early day that swampland was simply called the "Cattails," they not using Slough or Bottoms with it; just quaintly, "Cattails" as in "the body of land is bordered by bluffs on either side, sparsely covered with timber and by drainage having mostly drained to present the fairest meadows in the county."

Just after the Civil War, 1866, the first machinery was used to compress peat to rid it of its water content. It was believed the machinery was in the S.E. quarter of Section 18, Union Grove Township. Franklin Dodge and Bradstreet Robinson had set up that first factory but Robinson bowed at an unknown time. Mr. Dodge continued to work with the peat, experimenting to improve it for fuel. He'd had experience in the peat business as he had worked in the bogs in England, Ireland and France. He'd invented, even patented, pressing machinery which evolved as years passed until in 1881 he obviously felt some breakthrough should alter the course of peat pressing! He beggan promotion of a stock company which should have a capital of $30,000, he investing $5,000 to top the subscription list.

First on the agenda was to dig a canal through Redfern Slough to the river to expedite the marketing of the product. Next would come the hiring of a workforce of 35 to 40 men to process. He figured that a hundred tons a day could be worked up at a cost of $1.25 a ton. The claim was that a ton would equal 3/4 a ton of coal in heat value.

Might Fenton be the "capitol city" of the peat bog realm? It certainly could be of the township of the same name, it's just south of Union Grove, the onset of the peat deposits. Fenton, the settlement, is on Fenton Road, south from Garden Plain Road, west from Morrison.

So much information is unrecorded about the peat bogs that a complete history of them is not available. It is unfortunate because it is a unique, an uncommon, feature of our Northern Illinois history. Reference to them is scattered far and wide. A brief mention of peat beds, however is found in an early Stephenson County history, 1910, which reports that small beds of it are found near Lena and Ridott and "every swamp south of Yellow Creek has a peat formation. "In Florence Township is the best deposit between sections 25 and 26, about fifty acres, six to nine feet deep.

"When mixed with ashes or lime it is good fertilizer. If peat compressing machinery is perfected these beds may be profitably developed. One such, presses fifty tons a day ..." If such was exploited in Stephenson, we didn't pursue.

Not until 1911 is another step recorded in the Whiteside peat bog story. That year also there had been numerous small items in Henry County newspapers concerning peat beds near Kewanee and Geneseo being on fire, a not unusual occurence because once on fire, the bogs burned for weeks unless heavy rains squelched them as happened in 2005 in Lee County near Harmon in the Green River State Wildlife Area.

That prairie preserve of 2,500 acres had its semi-annual "burn" to rid the landscape of matted grasses and replenish its nutrients, a beneficial process. Since time began(!!) it has been discovered the profitability of that. Lightening had started the fires, pre-written history, then the native American had their controlled burns in centuries past. Although 2005 had been a dry year, the DNR went ahead with their required duty, they to burn four hundred thirty acres. Not realizing that of that, eighty acres was peat which being a natural fuel, caught fire and burned and burned and burned ... Weeks. It smoldered on and on creating a driving hazard on nearby hightways and was a household nuisance. Residents, the newspapers reported, took it in their stride, offering irrigation equipment and assistance when needed.

They also suggested that the next year, 2006, the IL DNR host an open house at the prairie preserve to introduce it to many who might not have known, even heard of its many values ... some of the area is natural, some restored and open to all as a free state venue. It can be used for hunting in season, bird and wildflower walking, star gazing ... far from city lights, horse back riding and just being out in the outdoors.

Inventory was made to discover the parts of the area which are peat and to learn more about that ancient part of our landscape. It couldn't have been that much of a surprise. After all, that all was once the WINNEBAGO SWAMP!