Month: September 2019

The marriage of Alfred Earnest Green and Sarah Eleanor Olmstead

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Fred Green

A very pretty wedding took place Tuesday afternoon at 12:30 o’clock when Miss Sarah Eleanor Olmstead, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Olmstead, of Dayton township, was united in marriage to Alfred Ernest Green, formerly of Dayton, but residing at the present time in Peoria. The ceremony took place at the bride’s home and was performed by Rev. G. T. Nesmith, pastor of the local M. E. church. About thirty guests were present. The bride was attired in a gown of embroidered organdie, trimmed in princess lace, and carried a bouquet of sweet peas and white roses. The bride was attended by her sister, Miss Edith Olmstead, who wore a gown of pink meteor, trimmed with chiffon and lace, and also carried a bouquet. The home was beautifully decorated with carnations, pink and white roses, lillies, smilax and ferns, making the place a bower of flowers. A niece of the groom, Miss Alyson Green, of Joliet, acted as flower girl. After the wedding ceremony a five-course dinner was served. The newlyweds departed for Chicago, where they will stay a few days previous to a lake trip, for their honeymoon. The couple will take up their residence at 1008 Gechman street, Peoria, after July 15. The bride is a very popular young woman of this city and is a member of both the Ottawa Woman’s club and the Dayton Home Makers’ club. Mr. Green is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Basil Green, of Dayton, and is in the employ of the Diamond Supply Company of Peoria. Both the bride and groom are well known in this vicinity and have a host of friends, who wish them a very happy marital life. Among those present from out of town were Mr. and Mrs. W. E. Green, of Joliet, Mr. and Mrs. G. C. Poole, of Maywood, E. G. Miller, of Millington, and Miss Gertrude Gardner, of Marseilles.

  1. Ottawa Free Trader, June 26, 1914, p. 8, cols. 1-2

La Salle County Old Settlers

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During one of the La Salle County Old Settlers picnics, pictures were taken in groups, depending on when they arrived in the county. This picture shows the settlers who arrived in 1832 and 1833. The gentleman on the left of the back row is Isaac Green. He did indeed arrive in 1833, being born in Dayton on August 8th. His parents, John and Barbara Green, and his older siblings had been in La Salle County since 1829.

Isaac was the youngest child in the family. While his older brothers and sisters married and were given land by their father, Isaac remained at home and took over the home farm, supporting his parents in their old age.

He had a well-known grain and stock farm, where he made a specialty of raising Norman and Clydesdale horses and thoroughbred cattle. He was well known at mid-west stock shows, where he showed some of the finest in either class to be found in the state.

He Wasn’t the One

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Joseph Green

Joseph Green (pictured above) is the youth mentioned in the following article from the Ottawa Free Trader. However, he was NOT the young man who was the subject of the horrible revenge.

Important Correction1

The following horrible relation, which we believe first appeared in print in the Lacon Herald in a letter from the plains, is going the rounds of the papers:

Revenge — Horrible. —Among the overland emigration for California, last spring, was Mr. Green, of “Green’s Wollen [sic] Factory,” Fox river, and two of his sons, the youngest a youth. — It is reported that while passing through a tribe of Indians, this youth who was naturally full of mischief, killed a squaw.  The tribe having been well advised of the fact, hastened after and overtook the company, and demanded the murderer. — At first the demand was resisted; but after the Indians had informed them that they would destroy the company if their request was not granted, the youth was surrendered into their hands.  They then stripped him, and in the presence of his father and the whole company, they skinned him from head to foot!  He lived four hours after he was thus flayed.  This should be a warning to all interested not to trifle with the unfortunate sons of the forest.

We have made considerable inquiry since we first saw this account in print, and find that it is true in its essential particulars, with one very important exception, and that is the name.  Instead of a son of Mr. Green, it was a young man by the name of Wasson, of Perkins’ Grove, Bureau county, who went with a company from Knox’s Grove, Lee county.  He is said to have been very fool hardy and reckless in character.  He made a threat, on leaving Independence, that he would shoot the first Indian he saw, but had not carried his threat into effect, until he had nearly reached California.  Then one of the company reminding him of it, he said he had forgotten it, but would carry it out yet.  He shortly after saw a squaw sitting on a log, and raising his piece, he murdered her in cold blood.  The Indians almost instantly thereupon surrounded the company and visited upon the murderer the terrible retribution above indicated.

This account is confirmed by four or five letters from members of the company, all of which agree in the essential particulars.  How the correspondent of the Lacon paper got the name of Mr. Green mixed up in the affair is more than we can tell.  Certain it is, however, that no letter from any of Mr. Green’s party, and there have been dozens received, ever hinted at any such occurrence, and, indeed, the very son himself said to have been killed, has written since his arrival in the mines, and the letters in his own familiar hand writing are in the hand of his friends.

  1. Ottawa (Illinois] Free Trader, February 23, 1850, p. 2, col. 2

Charles and Emily Ballou

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Charles Ballou tombstone

BALLOU, CHARLES WESLEY
Charles Wesley Ballou, formerly a resident of Dayton, who died at the Masonic Home, at Sullivan, Ill., of pneumonia, November 28th, was buried yesterday afternoon in the Dayton cemetery. Freedom Lodge, No. 194, A. F. & A. M., had charge of the services at the grave.
The deceased man was 84 years and 11 months of age at the time of his death, and prior to his entering the Masonic home had been a resident of Dayton, where he was well known.1

BALLOU, EMILY HENDERSON
Mrs. Emily Henderson Ballou was born at Richmond. Vermont, November 3, 1839. She was married twenty years later, 1869, to Charles W. Ballou and the same year she and her husband came to Walton township, La Salle County, Illinois, to set up a home in what was then the West; and ever since have been residents of this county; since 1866 this township has been their home. Nine years ago, Mr. and Mrs. Ballou took up their residence in Dayton village and here, as in the earlier years spent in this community, have endeared themselves to associates, have been and have enjoyed good neighbors and friends. Mrs. Ballou died Feb. 3, 1912, aged 73 years, 3 months, and she leaves to mourn her loss, her devoted husband and two nieces, Mrs. Georgiana Howe of Richmond, Vt., and Mrs. Jessie Hazelton of Waterbury, Vt., Mrs. Ballou being the last of her generation. She was a queen in her home, never wearied of the duties of hostess to friends or relatives, and many pleasurable days were spent by those who loved her at the home over which she reigned. Besides the sorrowing relatives hosts of friends will miss the life gone.2

CHARLES W. BALLOU – BIOGRAPHY

C. W. Ballou came to this county in 1856 from Addison County, Vt., where he rented a farm four miles north of Utica, remaining there one year. He then returned to Vermont and was married Aug. 25, 1857, to Emily Henderson, and remained there a year, visiting and farming, and in 1858 settled in Waltham Township La Salle Co., Ill., and farmed there until the spring of 1866. He has since resided in Dayton Township, first living on a farm on section 6 for one year. He then moved to Dayton Village, remaining there until December 1838 [sic], engaged in manufacturing horse collars. He then moved with his family to the place of A. S. Henderson, which he has since rented. He is a Master Mason. He has served as School Trustee for six years. His parents were P. C. and Hannah (Bird) Ballou, natives of New Haven, Conn., his father of French ancestry. His father died Oct. 1, 1884, aged seventy-eight years, and his mother died Feb. 22, 1882, aged seventy-five years. Mrs. Ballou was born Nov. 3, 1838, and was the fifth child in a family of seven children of John and Martha (Noble) Henderson, both of whom were natives of Massachusetts and of Scotch descent. Her father died in Richmond, Vt., in 1853, aged seventy-one years, and her mother died at the age of fifty-two years in 1850. Politically Mr. Ballou affiliates with the Democratic party.3

  1. Ottawa, Illinois, Daily Republican-Times, December 1, 1919
  2. Ottawa, Illinois, Fair Dealer, February 16, 1912
  3. History of La Salle County, Illinois, 2 vols. (Chicago: Inter-State Publishing Co.,1886), 2: 85.