The History of Homer Township

One of the first townships to be settled, in what is known today as Will County, is Homer Township in Illinois. This area attracted early settlers because of its vast woodlands which consisted of mostly white oak. Pioneer farmers of European origin started coming to northern Will County beginning in the late 1820’s. It soon became known as the “Yankee Settlement” because of the mixture of peoples from the “old and refined States of the Union”. Besides the exceptional timber, the area was known for its rich rolling prairie.

The United States had admitted Illinois as the twenty-first state on 3 December 1818. By February 1819, the Illinois Agricultural Society was founded; the only known record of this is from settlers’ handwritten letters. Its president was Morris Birkbeck, a famous English emigrant, who wrote Letters from Illinois (1818), among other publications, which enticed his fellow Englishmen to follow him to the prairies of Illinois (or at the least, to dream about it). The society’s main topic was about “practical agriculture”. This society was extremely important, particularly in Illinois, when the “land boom” happened because of the millions of acres for sale after Native Americans entered treaties and ceded land. Ironically, Birkbeck was ridiculed by Illinoisians soon after he became president of the IL Agricultural Society because he did not plant enough potatoes according to the settlers, and he also broke his plow.

The very first documented settlers to this area are known to be Joseph Johnson and his two sons Alfred and James. They traveled from Ohio and arrived in Homer Township in the autumn of 1830, just in time for the “big snow”. The winter of 1830 proved to be harsh not because of the frigid temperatures but because of the amount of snow that dumped itself onto the stark prairies and thick forests. It’s estimated over 2-4 feet fell that winter.

“The pioneers who lived through the Deep Snow never forgot the experience,” said Dr. Samuel Wheeler, a research historian at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield. “It was almost a badge of honor to say you lived through it. They measured time based on that winter.” (Emery, 2016).

Another settler from Ohio, James Ritchey, came to Homer Township in the Spring of 1831, just in time to experience the wild winter’s thaw; he wandered through swamps, dark forests, and lonely prairies. In the year 1878 he was reported as being “extremely sprightly, except for his blindness, for a man of his years, and possesses a most wonderful memory”. He remained in the area until his death in 1888.

According to the History of Will County, Illinois, Volume I, “Settlers from Europe were fascinated by the prairies of Will County. The virgin soil showed a fertility unknown to them.” It’s also mentioned how the pesty flies were troublesome in July, August, and September; so much so that the settlers chose to travel on horseback after sundown to avoid them. The biting flies were a nuisance to man and horse, sometimes even attacking a horse to its death. It was a double-edged sword since night traveling diminished the fly problem but heightened the demise of the mosquito problems.

It's worth mentioning that even though insects created hindrances, the wildflowers were beautiful in all seasons. Autumn time displayed glorious flora, springtime sprouted white and blue flowers, and there was “a thousand other flowers” which could not be attempted to describe. According to “A Summer Journey in the West”, it is written, “Imagine yourself in the center of an immense circle of velvet herbage, the sky for its boundary on every side; the whole clothed with a radiant efflorescence of every brilliant hue. We rode thus through a perfect wilderness of sweets, sending forth perfume, and animated with myriads of glittering birds and butterflies.” (Mrs. Steel, 1840).

It is believed that William Gooding (born 1 April 1803) planted and cultivated the first orchard in the area. He was the son of Deacon James Gooding, who had bought land from the first settler of Gooding’s Grove, a man named John McMahon. William was very interested in growing fruit trees and was likely the first to introduce the concept in Will County. William also wrote an article in the 1830’s for The Prairie Farmer on fencing by describing the use of dirt mounds and ditches. This was before barbed wire and there were few trees on the prairie suitable for split rail fencing. (John Lamb, 1982). The settlement took its name Gooding’s Grove from Williams orchard and nursery.

To be continued…more to come.