Excerpts from The Morris Herald for July 7, 1876.

LOCAL NEWS

THE FOURTH

On Monday evening we had one of the heaviest rain storms that has visited this section for a long time, and which greatly dampened the ardor of some of our citizens who had made preparations for visiting the neighboring towns to celebrate the “glorious Fourth.” It was an “old settler” on the Old Settlers’ picnic and Reunion, for on the morning of the Fourth, although the rain had subsided, the roads were in such condition that during the forenoon it was almost an impossibility for any one to come to town. The prospect in the morning for anything to be done was gloomy enough; but about 9 o’clock the Morris Cornet Band mounted the grandstand in the Court House Square and played one or two popular and patriotic airs which seems to invigorate the community.

Mr. C. H. Goold then announced that the condition of the Park was such that it would be impossible to go into it and hold the picnic, and that the historical address by the Hon. P.A. Armstrong would be delivered in the Square at 11 o’clock, a.m.

At the hour named Mr. Armstrong delivered the address, some two or three hundred of our citizens being present. The gentleman had been to a great deal of trouble to collect material for his address, had spent a good deal of time in its preparation, and it is to be very much regretted that the weather was such that debarred a great many from hear it. We have, however, through the kindness of Mr. Armstrong, been permitted to extract from the address, and give so much of it as related to Grundy county and the city of Morris:

GRUNDY COUNTY

Is composed of Townships No. 31, 32, 33, and 34, north of the base line and Ranges No. 6, 7, and 8, east of the 3rd Principal Meridian, and is therefore 24 miles from north to south lines, and 18 miles from east to west lines. The Desplaines and Kankakee rivers unite on Sec. 36, T. 32, R.3, near the east line of the county, and form the Illinois river, passing a little south of a westerly course leaves the county at Sec. 30, T. 33, R. 6, on the west line. The Illinois and Michigan Canal follows very closely the river all the way through the county. The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad enters the county on Sec 1, T. 34, R8, and passes out on the west on Sec. 18, T. 33, R. 6, then running nearly parallel with the River and Canal. The Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad enters the county from the east on Sec. 24, T. 32, E. 8, running southwest through the southeast part of the county, passing out through Section 34, T. 31, R. 7 while the Illinois River Railroad passes from east to west through the county. In fossil Botany Grundy County stands unrivaled by any locality in the world, and in coal the supply is inexhaustible, though the strata is thin, ranging from 30 to 36 inches, and in its Aux Sable sandstone it has the finest building stone in the world. Originally a part of LaSalle county, Grundy was erected under act of the General Assembly of this state, approved Feb. 17, 1841, and was named for Felix Grundy, the great lawyer of Tennessee. Under the act the election of officers for the new county was fixed for May 24, 1841, at the tavern of Columbus Pinney, but better known as Castle Dangerous, some three miles west of Morris. This was the only voting place for the entire county, but was amply sufficient, for there were but 148 votes cast and they were all out, for seldom has there been a more exciting election, caused chiefly by the fact that Wm. E. Armstrong and Geo. H. Kiersted, both of whom afterwards became county officers and obtained the confidence and respect of the people, had at that time just removed from Ottawa to Grundy and were candidates-one for Sheriff, the other for Recorder. They were both beaten at this election. Mr. Isaac Hoge was elected Sheriff (but failed to qualify, and at a subsequent special election Mr. Armstrong was elected to that office, and was re-elected several times afterwards.)  The officers elected at this time were James Nagle, Clerk of the County Commissioner’s Court; Henry Cryder, Jacob Claypool and James McKeen County Commissioners; L.W. Claypool, Recorder of Deeds; Leander Leclere, Coroner; Joshua Collins, Probate Justice; Sidney Dunton, County Treasurer; and Leander Newport, County Surveyor. Of those 148 voters who participated in the organization of this county, 33 years ago, about 30 are still living – Wm. H. Perkins, Samuel S. Randall, Wm. Walters, John Downey, Samuel Hoge, Wm. Hoge, Isaac Hoge, Lawrence White, Wm. White, Thomas Carroll, Zachariah Walley, James McKeen, James Thompson, James Harvey, Jeremiah Collins, Joshua Collins, Phillip Collins, John Longhead, Orville Come, John Dewey, Jacob Claypool, Michael H. Cryder and L. W. Claypool are still residents of the county, while Messrs. Theron Collins, Joseph Lewis, Daniel M. Thomas, Elijah Walker, Barton Holderman, Columbus Pinney, and Alex. K., better known as “Bucker” Owen, are still living, or were at last accounts. The residue have passed to the other side of the silent river.

The following are the earliest settlers, and in the order of their settlement as nearly as we can locate them: Wm. Marquis and family, moved with ox-team and schooner-wagon from Madison county, Ohio, overland through the wilderness to S. fraction of section two, Township thirty-three, Range seven, in October 1828.  He built a small cabin of such materials as he and family could handle and into this was placed his household effects.  He was the pioneer settler by full three years.  His nearest neighbor was James Galloway, near where Marseilles now stands, a distance of nearly 20 miles. It was here that he lost his son, William, 16 years of age, who died of fever in 1830. Physicians there were none within a hundred miles.  Having no place to keep the corpse in the one small room of his cabin, which served for kitchen, dining room, bedroom and sitting room, he wrapped the inanimate body up as best he could, placed it on top of his little smoke house to keep it away from the prowling wolves. Unable to bury his son without help, and his wife and daughters being sick, he struck out on foot for his nearest neighbor, Mr. Galloway, 20 miles distant, to obtain his assistance in burying his dead child.  Sick at heart, emaciated and weakened by sickness, and worn out by long solicitous and unceasing watching by the sick bed of his son, this afflicted man took his solitary course through the trackless prairies and pathless woods on this sad errand.  Footsore and weary he reached Mr. Galloway’s house at eventide, too much fatigued and overcome by the excessive heat of the day and its labors to think of returning before the next day. Mr. Galloway, like himself, had no horses, – they had no grain to feed them or place to keep them- thus these two started on their funeral procession early on the morrow, and reached their destination in the evening too wearied and worn to attempt the funeral that day. Early on the following morning they commenced the preparations for the first funeral of the county. The first and most important question was what would they do for a coffin. There was no lumber within fifty miles.  They had no tools save a hacksaw, auger, ax and hammer.  They started to find something in which to place the body.  An Indian canoe was found in the Mazon nearby.  This was confiscated and appropriated.  With the old hacksaw the canoe was cut in two and one end was taken for a coffin.  With the ax a basswood tree was felled and a portion of the trunk was split into ______? to make the end piece and coffin lid. The corpse was then placed in this strange coffin. Having no nails, the auger was used in boring a sufficient number of holes to fasten the end piece and lid, and wooden pins were made and driven in. Thus was the first coffin constructed in this county. Having succeeded in getting corpse into the coffin the next difficulty was in getting it to the grave which they had dug on the high land near where Mr. Samuel Holderman now lives. The old wagon with which he had moved to the State two years previous could not stand the sunshine and storm to which it had been exposed for want of shelter and had tumbled down. A yoke of oxen were brought into requisition, and with a log chain around one end, they started to “snake” the coffin to its place; but, unfortunately the oxen had not been worked for some time, and had grown wild and unmanageable; they broke away from their drivers and ran for dear life into that monster slough east of Samual Holderman’s house, and here they persisted in remaining until near sundown before they were coaxed to be driven to the solitary grave. The grave of young Marquis, like that of Moses, “no man knoweth the spot.” The Marquis family, having the first funeral doubtless had the first wedding that of their eldest daughter, Nancy, to James J. Halsey. Mr. Wm. Hoge’s was doubtless the second family here. He settled with his family on Sec. 23., T. 34, R. 6, where he still resides, in the fall of 1831, and James B. Hoge, his son, is believed to be the first white child born in the county. He was born May 6th, 1834. James McKeen, Esq., is probably the third. He settled on the Aux Sable in 1833, and built the first house in Morris, a log cabin, about where the Gas Works now stand, in May, 1834 for John P. Chapin. John Beard, Sr., his father-in-law, settled where Shermanville now stands, in 183_?. In Nov., of the same year, Mr. Zachariah Walley settled where he still lives. A. E. Owen settled on Sec. 24, town of Mazon, in May of that year. Col. Sayers built a cabin near where J. H. Pattison’s house now stands. It was occupied the next year by W. A. Hollaway, who is still living. Mr. John Taylor, father-in-law of Amos Clover, Esq., built a cabin on Sec. 33, in Town of Mazon, in same year. Wm. H. Perkins built a log cabin at his old homestead, in the town of Aux Sable, in Sept. of that year, and Nathanial H. Tabler built his first house near where he still lives, in Oct. of that year. Mr. Salmon Rutherford settled on Sec. 23, 34, 8, in June 1833, and Henry Cryder, father of M. H. Cryder, Esq., settled on Sec. Eight, Township thirty-five, Range eight in the same year.  In 1834 there were quite a number of families settled here. Geo. W. Armstrong built a cabin on Section __?, Town of Vienna, in the early party of March. A Mr. Grove built a cabin about the same time on Section 4, same town, now occupied and owned by Jonathan Wilson. Early this spring, James McCarty, an old bachelor took possession of a little bottom land 2 or 8 acres, on section 5, Wauponseh Grove, formerly occupied, by the Chief, Wauponseh, as a corn patch. He built him a little camp and raised a crop of corn, &c, with a hoc.  In the fall he built him a shanty of the corn fodder, in which he wintered.  The families of the Collinses, Claypools, Samuel and Isaac Hoge, E. W. Chapin, Jacob Spores, Charley Paver, Dr. L.S. Robbins, Datus Kent, Daniel Bunch and Timothy Horrom were among the settlers of 1834. Edwards Hollands started the first blacksmith shop at what is known as Hollands’ ford, on the Mazon Creek, in 1835.

MORRIS

Under the act, creating the county Grundy, Ward B. Burnett, Rullef S. Durwyea and Wm. E. Armstrong were appointed, in conjunction with the Canal Commissioners, to locate the county seat. It also required the county seat to be located on canal land, and directed them to set apart for that purpose and quantity of canal land, not exceeding ten acres and after doing so proceeded to lay off said land into a town site, embracing lots, streets, alleys and a public square, giving one-half to the state and the other to the county, alternately, and of equal value, the County to pay for its share at the rate of ten dollars per acre, thus making everything subserve to the interest of the Canal, then in course of construction. This County Seat Board was composed of parties, representing, as the sequel proved, conflicting and antagonistic interests. Generals Thornton and Fry and Newton Cloud, composing the Board of Canal Commissioners, were looking with an eye solely to interest of the canal fund, while Gen. Burnett and Messrs. Durwyea and Armstrong, were looking to the interests of the people of Grundy county in locating the seat of justice where it would be the most accessible and best location regardless of collateral issues. The competing points were sections 7 and 9, both in T 33, R 7. Nine was central from east to west. Seven was two miles west of the geographical centre. Both were several miles north of the centre from north to south, but by the act the seat of justice must be located on the line of the canal. The greater portion of section 9 lies south of the Illinois River-indeed but a mere fraction-that part of the city lying sough of Washington and West of Division streets, is all that lies north of the river, while nearly all of section 7 does lie north of the river, hence the Canal Commissioners were in favor of Sec. 7, while the others were for 6, and a dead lock was the result. Thus the matter stood for a year, while Grundy county presented the anomalous condition of being a county without a county seat. In 1842 Hon. Isaac M. Morris, of Quincy, Ill., was appointed to succeed Gen. Thornton, on the Board of Canal Commissioners, and this joint committee on county seat again met, on the 12th of April 1842, when Mr. Morris cast his vote for section 9, and in honor of that vote was the county seat named Morris. As we do not find any lots in the name of Mr. Morris, we are lead to the conclusion that no bribery was used in obtaining his vote. In the meantime a town was built here where Morris now stands. Mr. Armstrong settled here, and the county’s business had to be transacted. The county Commissioners Court was held on Monday, the 14th day of June, 1841, as the record says, at the house of Wm. E. Armstrong, in said county” thus, under the provisions of the act forming Grundy county, its organization was perfected and completed. The new town was called Grundy at first. Afterwards an attempt was made to change the name to Ilenia, but the Board of County Commissioners could not agree upon the orthography of the word. This was before the county seat was definitely located. The first settler where Morris now stands was John Cryder, who moved into the log cabin built by Mr. McKeen in 1834. The next was Peter Griggs, who built a cabin near where the aqueduct now is in 1837, and of the inhabitants of 1845, there are left but C.H. Goold, John Antis, John McNellis, James R. Jones, Dominick McGrath, P.A. Armstrong, Thos. Reynolds, M.P. Wilson, Thos Murnan, John Hart, John Gleunen, Jacob Griggs and Thos E. McGrath, barely a baker’s dozen. The Morris post-office was established in November 1842, L.W. Claypool, P.M. It was supplied by horseback from Ottawa to Joliet once a week. The gross receipts of the office for first quarter of 184 3 were $12.15. There were two other post offices then in Grundy county – Dresden and Kankakee, now Shermanville – but they have long since been discontinued. Geo. H. Kiersted succeeded Mr. Claypool as postmaster in 1845 and carried the mail around with him in his hat and distributed to parties he might meet.  He was a noble-hearted fellow, and we miss him much today. “Peace to his remains.”

A petition signed by 68 votes, being nearly one half of the entire voters of the county, was prepared in the fall of 1841, praying the establishment of a post office in the “Town of Grundy, on Sec. 4, T. 33, R7,” and forwarded to the Postmaster General, but refused because it was not a county seat. So the good people of Grundy were compelled to go either to Dresden, nine miles distant, to get their letters and papers, or go without them. The postage in those days was 25 cents in hard money on each letter. Mr. Armstrong being fully satisfied that the country seat would be ultimately located on section 9 removed his family from Ottawa here, taking possession of the only house-the log cabin built by Mr. McKeen, in 183? As before stated, and commenced the erection of a hotel upon the spot now occupied by Hopkins house. This hotel was known as the “Grundy Hotel,” and was burnt down in the winter of 1851. In this building was held all the courts for nearly two years.  He also, upon his own responsibility, erected a wooden structure upon the north-west corner of the now public square for a courthouse which was used for such until the erection of the present fine court house in 1856.  A town was laid off by John P. Chapin, on the SH ¼ of Sec. 4, known as Chapin’s Addition to Morris, and this locality was looked upon and considered by the people as the county seat. Mr. Claypool, the recorder, built a small frame house west of the court house where Shaw’s restaurant now stands, and opened his office as recorder there – thus the full machinery of a county government was put in operation without a county seat, for by the act creating the county the people had no voice in locating it, save through the commissioners named in the act.  The first term of the circuit court was held at the log cabin of Mr. Armstrong, in June, 1841, Theophalus W. Smith, Judge of the 7th Judicial Circuit, presiding.  There was but one case on the docket and that was dismissed by agreement of parties.  There was nothing for the grand jury to investigate, not even a jail, and they were discharged at once.  The record of this term of court is written upon a half sheet of letter paper and pasted into a record book subsequently purchased for that purpose. Judge Caton held the next term of the circuit court, and Richard M. Young succeeded Caton. Judge David Davis held one term of this court.  Up to 1846 there was no jail of any kind in the county.  In Dec. 1846 Jacob Claypool and Geo. M. Kiersted were appointed a committee to prepare plans and specifications and to let the contract for a jail, to be located near the south east corner of the public square.  They performed that labor in rather a new style of architecture.  The plan adopted was to sink a hole in the ground 14 x 14 and 12 feet deep, with a cabin on top, making the floor, sides, and top of heavy hewed timber, cutting out a space in the centre for a trap door to drop the prisoners through.  This trap door was made of bars of iron running across each other at right angles, lattice work, to let a little daylight through, and was fastened on top by hasp and staple with a heavy padlock. The contract for this underground jail was awarded to Dominick McGrath for $202.50, using the lowest responsible bidder; but when the Commissioner’s Court came to settle with him, while the work was satisfactorily done on his part, yet these Solons? then composing the Board of County Commissioners thought “Old Dom” was getting rich too fast and refused to pay him unless he would throw off $40 from the contract price.  This he finally assented to, and received his county order, then worth 75 cents on a dollar, for $162.50, and this was the price of jails in 1845-?. So inhuman did this jail appear to Old Bill Armstrong, known as “the Emperor of the Grundies,” who was sheriff of the county from the fall of 1841 to 1848, that he seldom put a prisoner in it.  Even Captain Cottrell, who took a change of venue all the way from McHenry county, and was proved guilty of stealing nearly everything from a wheelbarrow to a threshing machine, was saved from this terrible hole in the ground, and in time so gained the confidence of the Emperor that he was placed in charge of the ferry which was established near where the bridge now stands, and while there he made friends enough to insure his acquittal on the trail; not because ha had not been proven guilty of the charges in the indictment, but because they thought he had reformed and repented.  Poor Cottrell, his acquittal was really an injury to him, as he next attempted to steal a steamboat, at Louisville, Ky., and was sent to penitentiary for 14 years. At the December term, 1849, at the County Court, who under the Statute of 1845 succeeded the County Commissioner’s Court, Geo H. Kiersted, Philip Collins and Robert Gibson were appointed Commissioners to lay off the County into Towns under Township Organization. They divided the county into thirteen towns and submitted their report March 2d, 1850. The names of two of these towns were changed from the report. What is now Erienna was “Fair View,” and Goodfarm was “Dover,” in their report. The town of Felix was organized in 1860, and named Felix for Felix Grundy – thus, although there are but 12 Congressional Townships, there are 14 towns in the County, viz: Erienna, Aux Sable, Braceville, Felix, Greenfield, Goodfarm, Highland, Mazon, Morris, Nettle Creek, Norman, Saratoga, Vienna, and Wauponseh. The names of these various towns were suggested by the inhabitants. Saratoga, for instance, was named by Mr. C. G. Conklin, for Saratoga, New York. Wauponseh was named like Wauponseh Street, in Morris, for that old heathen and blackhearted murderer, Wauponseh, the Pottawatomie Chief, who formerly lived at what is also called Wauponseh Grove. The last act of this old fiend before he moved west of the Mississippi, in 1837, was the cold-blooded murder of captive squaw, the unfortunate Osage, to whom had been assigned the drudgery of taking care of his copper colored papooses.  With the instinct of nature this poor squaw attempted to gain her freedom by flight from her hateful bondage. She was pursued and brought back and beaten nearly to death with clubs in the hands of Wauponseh’s squaws, then bleeding and suffering the most agonizing pains, she was laid upon her back upon the newly plowed land of Mr. McKeen, near the Kankakee River, where she was surrounded by the squaws of Wauponseh, crouching down in a circle around their half-murdered victim, with the scorching rays of an August sun pouring down on her bruised and bleeding face, this old fiend standing near her head delivered to her some kind of a jargon lecture and then caused her sister captive-an Osage squaw-to brain her with a tomahawk, thus inflicting not only the death penalty, but the most degrading one known to the Indian, – that of being killed by a squaw.

Up to the time the deed was done not an Indian save Wauponseh was in sight, but they seemed to rise, like the soldiers of Roderic Dhu, from every copse and fern and came swooping around like a flock of buzzards to a carrion. The body was carried to the edge of the Kankakee River and covered with sand and left to the mercy of the wolves, while Wauponseh and his band started on their trip west of the Mississippi River never to return. Mr. McKeen, who witnessed the transaction with horror, waited until the murderers were out of sight, when he dug a grave and deposited the body of the unfortunate captive therein and gave her a decent burial. The name of Wauponseh should stand with that of the Modoc, Capt. Jack, and only used in execration and scorn. He was a giant in size, a Devil by nature. His name has been confounded with that of Waubonsee who was another and a very different Indian Chief. The latter figured in the massacre of the garrison at Chicago, 1813, as a friend of the whites and helped to save the life of John H. Kinzie and family. Wauponseh’s first appearance was at the battle of the Thames, Oct. 4, 1813, at a private. At this battle a musket ball passed through his breast, and he having survived the simple minded and superstitious Indians interpreted his singular recovery as an omen from the Great Spirit that he should be their War Chief.  How different was the character of the other Pottawattomie Chief Shaboneh. He too was in the battle of the Thames, and close beside Tecumseh when he fell. He saw enough of the whites at that battle to convince him that the Red Men should never attempt to conquer the whites, and from that day to the time of his death he was the firm friend of the pale faces, and always warned them if within his power when danger threatened them.  His reply to Black Hawk, in 1832, to the latter’s statement that if Shaboneh “would unite his braves with the Sacs and Foxes they would have an army, like the trees of the forest,” “Aye, replied Shabaneh, but the army of the pale faces would outnumber the leaves upon the trees of the forest,” should never be forgotten, and his untiring and persistent efforts to warn the frontiers of their danger whenever and wherever he learned of Black Hawk’s intention to massacre them are facts well known to all of the early settlers of Northern Illinois. His remains slumber in the Morris cemetery without monument. He was a man of fact as well as talent. When some years since while attending a 4th of July ball, at Ottawa, he was asked to point out the prettiest lady in the room, and accepted the task, after a close scrutiny of the many handsome ladies in the room, and knowing that in selecting one he must give offense to many, he nicely evaded it by selecting Wiomex Oquawka Shaboneh his own old wife, weighing full 400 pounds, as the one. He died on his farm, (20 acres) in the Town of Norman, in this county, July 17, 1860, aged 84 years. His wife wad drowned in the Mazon, Nov. 30 ’64, ag’d 86 years, and is buried by his side. Their daughter, Mary, died May 14, 1860, and a grand daughter, Mary Okamo Shaboneh, was drowned with the old squaw, Nov. 30, 1864 and are buried beside Shaboneh. He was of a cheerful disposition, gentle as a lamb, yet brave as a lion. It is a shame that no monument has been erected to his memory. Yet it matters not whether his virtues be inscribed upon a monument of stone or not.  His deeds of mercy and near sacrifice in saving the lives of the early settlers, in 1833, will outlive sculptured marble or polished stone.  The Recording Angel has written them down in the Book of Life, in letters of burnished gold, which cannot be obliterated or erased, and among the frontiersmen of that date and their descendants, the name of Shaboneh and his deeds, will be handed down from father to son, and from mother to her prattling babe, from generation to generation, as household words and sacred legends.

There were 19 separate and distinct mounds where Morris stands, as late as 1845, in each of which the skeleton bones of human beings have been found with many Indian trinkets. The cedar pole, on Wauponseh Street, marks the burial place of Nucquett(?), and has stood there undoubtedly over a hundred years.  When he died we know not – we only know the name from tradition.

The old settlers are rapidly passing away.  Since our reunion last September three members of our association have passed to the other side of the silent river. They are – Abraham C. Carter, the second officer of our society; George H. Kiersted, whose name has been most intimately interwoven with the history of the county, and for 30 years a county officer; and Mrs. Morgan Button. Many more will soon follow –

For long we cannot tarry here, And soon – full soon – the end will be, When free from sorrow, pain and fear, We’ll rest at home – Eternity.

We have heard a number of our citizens speak of the address, and all speak of it as being very complete as far as it goes, but all express a wish that the gentleman had continued the history down to the present time, taking in the construction of the Illinois canal and the Rock Island and Pacific Railroad through the county, and the building of the new jail.  We who are new settlers in Grundy county are interested in these things and hope Mr. Armstrong will yet favor us with the history complete to the present time.

Aside from this address nothing transpired during the day worthy of mention in this connection unless it be to accord praise to the Morris Cornet Band for the excellent music furnished throughout the day.

The races which were to have taken place in the afternoon, were postponed until Thursday, the 13th inst.

SUICIDE

On Thursday of last week the body of Fritz Even was found floating in the canal near the aqueduct. Coroner Ridgeway was notified, who summoned a jury and held an inquest, the verdict being that “Fritz Even came to his death by drowning by his own voluntary act.” The circumstances leading to this sad death are as follows:  About a year ago death entered the family of Even and removed his wife and two children. At that time he was sick, and he has been grieving some ever since, which, added to the grief over the loss of his loved ones, so worked upon his mind as to render him mentally unsound.  A few weeks ago he remarked that, unless his health soon improved, he would destroy his life.  Everything connected with his death goes to show that he had long meditated self-destruction.  He went to the canal, pulled off all his clothes but pants and shirt and plunged into the water.  He was about 35 years old and was a carriage maker by trade.

The sad intelligence reaches us of the death of Miss Maggie A. Irwin, of Seneca, one day last week, by her own hand, having deliberately taken poison for the purpose of self-destruction, and as report has it, rid herself of the unwelcome advances of a young man who sought her hand in marriage. Miss Irwin will be remembered by many of our citizens as a student of the Classical Institute during the time the institution was under the management of Prof. Dougherty. For two or three years she has been a teacher in the Seneca schools, and at the time of her death she was the presiding officer of the lodge of Good Templars of that town. She was a young lady of superior mind, always a leader in whatever was undertaken for the good of the community in which she resided and by all was she honored and esteemed. It is sad to think that one so young and so pure, one competent and qualified for doing so much of good in the world, should in such a manner be taken away.

BIDS FOR STONE WORK

Notice is herewith given that sealed proposals will be received by the committee on streets and alleys of the city of Morris, until Monday evening, July 10th, at 6 o’clock, for the following work, viz: For building an arch bridge at or near the Fair Ground, and known as the Fair Ground Bridge. Also for building walls in what is known as the Horrie ditch. The work to be let to the lowest bidder for perch or cord the city furnishing all material. For further particulars apply to the committee. Com.: John Barr, Henry Fey, Thos. Owens, Dated July 5th 1876.

List of Letters

Remaining in the Post Office, at Morris, Grundy County, Ills., for the week ending July 3, 1876, and uncalled for. Persons calling for any of the following letters will please call for “Advertised”.

• Causin, Henrich
• Farmer, Ebenezer
• Fair, Geo. A.
• Haligaw, Christopher
• Higbee, David
• Hoover, Isaac
• Hoover, J. M. Esq.
• Hennessey, Mrs. Rose
• Kundsen, Miss Cari
• Lewis, C. W.
• Reader, Henry
• Seyter, Frank
• Smith, Mrs. Eliza A.
• Slosser, John
• Woodrow, Mrs. J. H.
• Hanlon, P. (German)
• L. Whitney, P. M.

Marriage Licenses – During the month of June Marriage Licenses have been issued to the following persons:

• Henry Fitzpatrick and Mahala Smith
• George Porel and Mary Ann Houghten
• Abraham Silvernail and Mrs. Maria O’Leary
• George R. Westfall and Mrs. Mary A. Conklin
• George Archibald and Jane McNeill
• John Watson and Margaret Clarkin