Village of Oswego IL history

When the United States Government established a post office in the new village in January 1837, it was named Lodi.

In 1841, Kendall County was established with the county seat located in Yorkville.

Not until 1842 did the United States Government finally put the land up for sale at the established price of $1.25 per acre.

By 1845, Oswego Township had enough population to win a referendum on moving the county seat to Oswego from Yorkville.

Margaret Ruth Shepard was born March 8, 1846 in Kendall Township, Kendall County, Illinois, the daughter of a prosperous farmer and his wife, David and Susanna Mary (LeStourgeon) Shepard.

In 1848, a new Greek Revival courthouse opened on the block bounded by Madison, Jackson, Monroe, and Jefferson streets.

The company was originally established at Newark here in Kendall County in 1852.

So it was almost inevitable when, on May 22, 1863, the War Department issued General Order 143, establishing the United States Colored Troops.

A few years later, a new courthouse was ready for use in Oswego . The county seat remained in Oswego until it was moved back to the more centrally located Yorkville in 1864 following a second referendum.

He was released from the hospital just in time to march and fight (and be wounded again, this time in the hand) with the 29th all the way to Appomattox Courthouse where he was on hand for Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865.

“The general cry from the people of Kane and Kendall counties for cheaper fuel seems to have awakened this slumbering enterprise into a new and more vigorous life,” suggested editor and publisher John R. Marshall in the May 31, 1866 Kendall County Record.

Work on the road was nearly ready to begin in March and April 1867, when Fox Valley interests had to fend off an attempt by Will County interests to have the road run north to Plainfield from Streator.

30, 1869: “The thermometer on Tuesday morning at seven o’clock showed 16 below zero—it was still; no wind stirring.

Then in early March 1870, the old rumor of the secret sale of the OO&FRV line to the CB&Q raised its head once again.

After moving into Oswego from the family farm in 1875, then 29 years old, she went into millinery, the manufacture and sale of ladies’ hats and fashion accessories.

5, 1876, Lorenzo Rank, the Kendall County Record’s Oswego correspondent reported: “W.H. [William Huston “Hugh”] McConnell & Co., a new firm, have just commenced business in this town.

E.W. Hicks concerning the scandal in his 1877 history of Kendall County: “Happy the far off day of the mercantile millennium when every man can enjoy the sight of the world on wheels passing through his field without the discomfort of losing his railroad stock by swindling directors.”

By 1881, the lack of maintenance and regular cleaning of the supply tank, as well as failure to maintain the windmill meant the whole system was failing badly.

In 1885 at the age of 39, probably fearing she would never find a husband, Maggie adopted a five year-old girl, Stella, from the Chicago Orphan Asylum.

Then in March 1888, Maggie moved her millinery business one last time, renting the home formerly occupied, and owned, by Oswego pioneer Marcius C. Richards.

Benensohn bought Charles Sabin’s Yorkville photo studio in April 1893.

Work on installing the system didn’t begin until April 1895.

Expanding the municipal system to more areas of the village began in early summer 1896.

In August 1897 representatives of the new (and optimistically named) Aurora, Yorkville & Morris Electric Railroad met with the Kendall County Board to start hammering out a trolley franchise.

Service in the line opened in 1900 and provided convenient passenger and light freight service for the next two decades.

As the Record reported on June 26, 1901: “One of the prettiest weddings of the season occurred Wednesday evening June 19 at the home of Mr. and Mrs.

The house was built by Luella Hettrich in 1907 after she moved the house originally on the lot around the corner to Monroe Street.

9, 1916 Record reported: “The [Illinois Rivers and Lakes] commission has surveyed the Fox river and discovered it to be ‘a dirty, evil smelling waterway’ from which the fish have been killed off.

16, 1918, the bonded indebtedness was to be paid through gasoline taxes.

Helen Gilmour was just 16 years old on that Tuesday afternoon in April 1943 when she stood waiting for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad’s gas-electric motor car—locals all called it the Dinky—to pull into the Oswego depot down at Jackson and South Adams streets.

That new steel tank atop its tower legs served the community well for nearly 50 years until a new, much larger, water tower was built to replace it in 1958.