Month: June 2025

Give Credit Where Credit is Due

Candace W Leave a comment

Richard Veale, of Dayton, while chopping wood in the timber last Monday about two miles from his house, felled a tree which partially lodged, and not being a very large one, and having fallen in such a manner as to need moving, he took hold of it at the butt end to slide it around, when it slipped and caught his left hand, crushing the inner half to a pulp and breaking the bones of the little finger. He started home, and while on his way the hand was frozen.

Arriving at Dayton, he took a train and came to Ottawa and Dr. Hatheway dressed the wound, having to remove the broken bones from the hand. Mr. Veale is a poor hard-working man and has a sick family at present, and will be laid up for several weeks to come. He was here again yesterday and Dr. Hatheway examined the wound and says it is doing as well as it possible can for so serious an injury.1

The FREE TRADER, the other day, in speaking of an injury done to the hand of Mr. Veale, of Dayton, gave the name of a certain physician as healing it, which was wrong. As Dr. Downs was the actual attending physician, Mr. Veale thinks he ought to have the credit for the successful treatment of a hand which was very badly crushed, but which is now, under Dr. Downs’ treatment, getting well as fast as any reasonable man ought to expect.2

  1. Ottawa Free Trader, January 24, 1890, p, 3.
  2. Ibid, January 28, 1890, p. 1.

Baby Claire and Friends

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This picture was taken when the house was no longer occupied. The house was built into the side of the hill. The upper yard refers to the large flat area at the top of the hill at the back of the house.  The front yard sloped steeply to the street.

A pretty sight was presented at the residence of O. W. Trumbo, in Dayton township, last Thursday. The beautiful grounds which overlook the town were the scene of a novel and pleasing affair. Clare [sic] Van Ettan, 15 months old, son of Mr. and Mrs. Will Van Ettan, was master of the occasion, and with the aid of seventeen of his baby friends managed to make the woods echo and re-echo with their joyous shouts of glee. All the little ones were about the same age, none being older than nineteen  months, and, with one or two exceptions, all were cousins. The picnic dinner was served in the upper yard and each baby, accompanied by its mother, took a seat on the lawn and, it is needless to say, the sight was indeed laughable and pleasant. There were also present about twenty older children, friends of Baby Clare.

Claire and younger brother Walcott Van Etten

The ladies present, whose babies were honored guests, were: Mrs. M. Peddicord, Mrs. Will Newell, Mrs. N. M. Green, Mrs. T. E. MacKinlay, Mrs. J. G. Gay, Mrs. John Parr, Mrs. Charles Shaver, Mrs. Ed Vernon, Mrs. W. N. Bagley, Mrs. H. B. Williams, Mrs. Frank Shaver, Mrs. Frank Trumbo, Mrs. Will Van Ettan, Mrs. John Gibson (Denver, Col.), Mrs. Wm. Martell (Syracuse, N. Y.), Mrs. T. H. Green (Morris, Ill.) The same babies held a party one year ago and it is the intention of the parents to have them assemble annually whenever possible.1

I’ve ben able to identify these baby guests:
Lulu, daughter of Newton M. and Ella (Pool) Green
Harold, son of John and Lucy (Milliken) Parr
Ida Mae, daughter of Charles and Nellie (Watson) Shaver
Sadie, daughter of Edward and Adelaide (Benoit) Vernon
Jesse, son of William N. and Cynthia (Smith) Bagley
Frank, son of Hosea B. & Cora (Green) Williams
Claire, son of Wilmot and Jessie (Trumbo) Van Etten
Frederic, son of John T. and Josephine (Green) Gibson
Albert, son of William and Edith (Dunavan) Martell
Mabel, daughter of Thomas Henry and Cora (Childs) Green

  1. Ottawa [Illinois} Free Trader, July 26, 1890, p. 7, col. 3

Death of Rebecca (Mrs. Matthias) Trumbo

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DIED
At their residence in Rutland, on the 29th ult., Mrs. REBECCA TRUMBO, wife of Matthias Trumbo.

Thus, one more of the early settlers of this part of the state, has closed a long and useful life. Thirty-five years ago they settled on the place where they have since lived, and where she died, and is buried.

They had their share of the hardships and privations of a new country. But through them all she had been brought and she came down to her grave in a good old age. She was born in the Shenandoah Valley in the state of Virginia, in 1794, and removed with her parents to Ohio in 1811 So that she had passed through the early settlement of two of what was then known as Western States. Her last illness was a lingering one, attended with much bodily pain.

But for nearly fifty years her trust and confidence had been alone in the finished work of her Redeemer, and a religion whose virtues she had illustrated so eminently by a strong faith and a meek and quiet spirit afforded her abundant consolation and support in her last sickness and in the prospect of death.

On the last day of May a large concourse of people gathered at the old family residence to sympathize with the afflicted husband, the bereaved children, and a large circle of kindred, and to pay their last tribute of respect to one that many of them had long known and that all respected and loved. The Rev. Z. Colman improved the occasion in some remarks from the very appropriate passage in Job 5

“Thou shall come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in his season.”

We learn that it is probable a much fuller sketch of this excellent woman’s life, will appear in a different form with the sermon delivered at her funeral.1

If the fuller sketch ever did appear, it was not published in the Free Trader, so perhaps this additional information will be of interest.

Rebecca Grove was born September 15, 1794, in Shenandoah county, Virginia, the daughter of John and Barbara (Lionberger) Grove. She went to Licking county, Ohio with her parents and there married Matthias Trumbo on March 5, 1818. Seven children, John, Lavina, Isabella, the twins, Eliza & Elias, Barbara, and Elizabeth, were born to them in Ohio. They moved to Rutland township, La Salle county, Illinois, where their last child, Elma Ann, was born in 1838,

Rebecca was related to a great many of the Green/Grove families of early La Salle county. Her sister Barbara was the wife of John Green. Her daughter Isabella was the first wife of Jesse Green, son of John. Her daughters, Nancy (married David Shaver), and Emma (married Rezin Debolt) and her sons David and Joseph were all early residents of Rutland township.

Rebecca died on May 29, 1865 and Matthias on November 20, 1875, . They are both buried in the Trumbo cemetery in Rutland township.

  1.  Ottawa (Illinois) Free Trader, June 10, 1865, p. 3, col. 4

Taffy Pulls and Trained Bears

Candace W 1 Comment

DAYTON ITEMS

The paper mill is being put in shape for starting up the latter part of this week. The tile works will not start up before the middle of the month.

A large surprise party dropped in on mine host Timmons, of the Exchange House, last Tuesday evening, completely surprising him. James Angevine furnished the music and all had a good time.

Mr. H. Ladd, of Oswego, brother of our station agent, A. W. Ladd, spent last Sunday in Dayton.

We understand that Miss Jennie Crane, of Ottawa, will teach the summer term of the primary department of our school. Miss Etta Barnes will teach the McMichael school east of Wedron, and Miss Rigdon, of Ottawa, the Wedron School.

A number of our young people attended a very pleasant “taffy” pulling given by Miss Winnie Childs at her father’s large residence in North Ottawa.

Mr. Cliff G. Sweet and wife, of Aurora, spent last Friday in Dayton.

In our report of the leap year party at Mrs. Greenleaf’s, the printer made the names J. Hall  and C. Hall read J. Half and C. Half. We noticed the Journal copied our report almost word for word, and of course got those names wrong also as they were printed in the Republican.

The two trained bears passed through our town last Saturday and gave a performance at the depot in the morning.

OCCASIONAL1

Just to let you know how up to date we are around here, the illustration for today’s entry is the result of this AI prompt: a line drawing of 2 tame bears performing with a depot and train tracks in the background. I suspect the actual 1884 situation looked a little different.

  1. Ottawa Republican, March 7, 1884, p. 5.