Lightning Struck Barn

July 29, 2026July 23, 2026Candace W Leave a comment

LIGHTNING STRUCK BARN
Horses knocked down and stunned by the bolt
Big Building on John L. McGrath Farm Set Afire During the Storm Thursday

A big barn on the farm of John L. McGrath in Dayton township, was struck by lightning during Thursday afternoon’s storm, and was saved through the timely efforts of several men at the McGrath home.

The people saw the bolt hit the building and in its freak maneuvers made a circuit of the inside, knocking several of the horses to the ground and setting the place afire.

The men rushed to the building with buckets of water and wet blankets and had the blaze extinguished shortly. The barn is occupied by stock, hay and implements, and is a very large one. Mr. McGrath is the possessor of several blue blood horses, one of which was knocked down and stunned by the bolt Thursday.

It has always been the custom of the McGrath household to watch the place during electrical storms and the idea proved its worth Thursday.¹

The Free Trader, August 21, 1914, p. 5, col. 5

A Fraudulent Deed

July 22, 2026July 17, 2026Candace W Leave a comment

In the late nineteenth century, Dayton saw its share of opportunists, and one of them soon crossed paths with the Green family – specifically David Green’s widow, Mary, who now owned the Dayton mill.

In 1890 Levi K. Purky arrived from Newport, Indiana, expressing interest in buying the mill. Purky represented himself to John Green, Mary’s son who conducted all her business, as the owner of 500 acres of timber land in West Virginia. He described the land as near a railroad station and said that a natural flow of oil had lately been discovered near it. He further stated that the land was worth from $20 to $60 per acre and offered to trade the same for the mill and assume the mortgage of $2,500 on the mills. He furnished an alleged abstract of the land in West Virginia and the exchange was agreed upon

The mill was occupied at the time by one John Smeeth, and for the immediate possession of the mill Purky offered Smeeth 125 acres of the land. The exchange was made and Mrs. Green was given a deed for 375 acres of timber land in West Virginia.

It was then discovered that neither Purky nor the grantors of his deed had any interest in the property. Mary then sued to cancel the deed she had given Purky and that her property be returned to her. The Grand Jury indicted Purky for conspiracy and aiding in a fraudulent land sale. He was arrested and then released by giving a bond for $2000, with Basil Green on the bond.

Upon his arrest Purky employed lawyers to look into the matter. The investigation brought to light the fact that Purky himself was swindled in purchasing the land by the man who sold it to him. The latter gentleman, now residing in St. Louis, was visited by Mr. Purky’s attorney, When first questioned regarding the title of the land he pretended to know nothing about it. He was placed under arrest, made a clear confession of the whole transaction, and stated that he would willingly do anything to effect a compromise in this matter.

The man would undoubtedly be brought to Ottawa and the litigations commenced against Purky would undoubtedly be settled without ever coming to trial. The fact that no further items appeared in the Ottawa newspapers lends credence to this conclusion.

*Dunavan – Martell Marriage

July 15, 2026Candace W Leave a comment

Dunavan-Martell

Married. – Wednesday, Sept. 28, at 1 o’clock P.M., at the residence of the bride’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. F. Dunavan, their daughter Jennie E. to William H. Martell of Chicago.

The ceremony was performed by the Rev. W. Day of Ottawa, in the presence of about 30 of the relatives and intimate friends of the bride and groom. After congratulations and a feast at the bountiful board, the newly married couple took the 3:50 p. m. accommodation to Chicago, where they will make their home.

The bride was one of Dayton’s fairest daughters, and will be greatly missed from our society. She was organist in our Sunday school for a good many years and a prime mover in all social events. She was a graduate of the Ottawa High School of the class of ’85. The groom is a solicitor for the Gas Consumer’s Co. of Chicago.

The presents were many and fine, and evinced the love and respect in which the bride and groom are held by their numerous friends and relatives.

The following guests were present: Mrs. Dunavan of Fairbury, Ill., sister of the bride’s mother; Mrs. Behm of Syracuse, N. Y., aunt of the groom; Miss Clark of Chicago, and Mrs. A. E. Butters of Ottawa, of the High School class of ’85; Mr. and Mrs. C. B. Hess, Mr. and Mrs. H. B. Williams, Mr. and Mrs. David Hall and Will Rising, of Ottawa; Misses Cora Moore, Maud Green, Mae Trumbo, Ella Green, Eva Channel, and Jessie Trumbo; Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Green; Messrs. A. W. Ladd, W. Van Etten, John Green, James Green, Harry Green, Joseph Green. A large number of regrets were received from those who were unable to be present. A number of fine presents were received by express.

Mr. Wm. Dunavan, the eldest brother of the bride, was unable to attend the ceremony as he has just opened a wholesale and retail store of horse collars, harnesses, buggies, &c., at Kinsley, Kansas.

Occasional¹

Jennie Edith Dunavan was the daughter of Albert F. and Emma (Cooper) Dunavan. She was born May 29, 1866.

Ottawa Free Trader, October 1, 1887, p. 1, col. 4

The Elm Tree Isaac Planted

July 8, 2026July 3, 2026Candace W 1 Comment

The tall tree behind the house is surely the elm Isaac planted the same year the house was built

Every so often, while rummaging through old posts on my website, I stumble across a detail that meant nothing when I first wrote it — and suddenly means everything now. This week’s discovery came from a piece I wrote years ago about the paper toys my great‑aunt used to make for us. I wasn’t looking for anything important; I was just checking whether I’d already written about them. But tucked into that post was a memory I had completely forgotten.

My great‑aunt was describing the afternoon she and I spent measuring the elm tree in their backyard. I remember the day: the tape measure, the rough bark, the way she insisted we “do it properly.” The tree was enormous — thirty feet around at the base. Even then, I knew it was old. What I didn’t know was its origin.

She wrote, almost casually, that the elm had been planted by her father, Isaac, in 1853.

At the time I first read that, the date didn’t register. It was just a number, one more scrap of family lore. But now — after months of reconstructing land chains, aligning plats, and tracing the early settlement along the ridge — that date rings like a bell.

Because 1853 was the year John, Jesse, and David Green all built their solid frame houses along the shelf of land overlooking the river. The identical houses with the hipped roofs and the row of windows across the front. The houses that marked the moment the family shifted from older buildings to new shiny homes. The year the family cluster became the center of the Green settlement.

And while those houses were going up, Isaac planted an elm.

That tree grew alongside the houses — literally. It stood there through every change: the farm years, the dairy years, the years when the town was busy and the years when it was quiet. By the time my great‑aunt and I wrapped a tape measure around it, the elm had lived through the entire arc of the family’s Dayton history.

It wasn’t just a tree. It was a witness.

I didn’t know that when I wrote the original post. I didn’t know it when I measured the tree as a child. But now, with the whole 1853 landscape finally coming into focus, that little detail — buried in a paragraph about paper toys — suddenly feels like a thread that ties everything together.

Sometimes the past doesn’t reveal itself all at once. Sometimes it waits patiently in an old remark until you’re finally ready to understand it.

From Bright Eyes to Greenacres: A Century of Cattle

July 1, 2026June 29, 2026Candace W 1 Comment

A Shorthorn Matriarch

If you stand in the old barn long enough, you can almost hear them: the soft shifting of hooves, the creak of stanchions, the low, steady breath of cows who lived a century apart yet shared the same worn floorboards. The Green farm in Dayton held cattle for nearly a hundred years, and in that time the herd changed as surely as the world around it.

It began with Isaac Green in the 1850s, a man with an eye for Shorthorns and the patience to build a herd one careful breeding at a time. His cows had names like Bright Eyes, Lilac, and Jenny Lind — Victorian names for Victorian cattle — and their daughters and granddaughters shaped the farm for decades. Isaac’s herd was a breeder’s herd, full of ambition and pedigree, the kind of cattle meant to improve a breed, not just fill a milk pail.

When Isaac died in 1904, the Shorthorn era slowly faded. The cows aged out, the bulls were sold, and the farm shifted into a quieter rhythm as a new chapter began. By 1916, Isaac’s son, Lyle, was buying registered Jersey bulls; by 1918 he appeared in the Jersey Herd Register with more than seventy animals. The farm had changed breeds, changed purpose, and even gained a name — Greenacres — though the land beneath it was the same.

By the 1930s, Lyle’s Jerseys were a full, accredited dairy herd: sleek, golden cows tested and certified tuberculosis‑free by the USDA. Their birth certificates were ornate, their pedigrees carefully kept, and their milk rich with the butterfat Jerseys are famous for. This was the farm at its modern peak.

And then, in time, the herd shrank again. By the years I remember, there were maybe twelve or fifteen cows left. My father would walk across the bridge to the far pasture to bring them home in the evening, the river sliding by quietly as the cows came up the road in that unhurried way cattle have. They were the last generation — the final echo of a story that began with Isaac’s Bright Eyes almost a century before.

The Barns on the Green Farm

June 24, 2026June 18, 2026Candace W Leave a comment

The old barn on the left was probably the second Green barn, likely built sometime around 1855. It was already old by the time the new gambrel‑roof dairy barn went up in the 1910s. By the time I came along, the two barns stood side by side — one from the pioneer era, one from the dairy boom — like an accidental before‑and‑after picture.

This is the only picture I have that shows both barns. It was taken from the northeast, before the hillside was covered with trees. The old barn suffered a fire sometime before the 1940s, as Dayton children in my youth played a great game of tag/hide in the remnants of the interior. It was finally torn down in 1955. The new barn also died by fire in 1989, but the cows were long gone by then.

A Large and Brilliant Meteor

June 17, 2026June 10, 2026Candace W Leave a comment

Last Saturday evening about 8 o’clock a large and brilliant meteor was seen by a few fortunate ones who chanced to be “‘neath the starry heavens.” It started nearly overhead and “struck a bee line” for the northeast, leaving a tail of fire after it resembling a comet. Just before it reached the horizon it exploded, throwing out particles in all directions. The sight was magnificent. By the Chicago Times of Monday, we notice it was seen in Chicago and in Battle Creek, Michigan. At the latter place the light from the meteor was so brilliant as to dim the gaslight.¹

It was seen well beyond Dayton. Chicago papers called it a fireball of extraordinary brilliance. Some Michigan observers thought stones might have fallen, while others insisted the explosion was strong enough to shake buildings. No confirmed meteorites were ever found, but the speculation gives a sense of how powerful the detonation must have been.

In Dayton, the meteor left no physical trace, but it was remembered. It shows up in the same breath as the great floods and the deep snows — one of those moments when something unusual crossed the sky and the correspondent thought it worth noting.

Ottawa Free Trader, January 8, 1881, p. 8, col. 3

Ralph Green – Postal Clerk

June 3, 2026May 22, 2026Candace W Leave a comment

Ralph Green was a Railway Post Office clerk around the beginning of the 20th century. He worked on the train, sorting mail for delivery to all the small towns along the route. He made $75/month, $900/year.

Railway Post Office clerks were considered the elite of the postal service’s employees. Their jobs were exhausting and dangerous, their entrance tests demanding—a passing grade was considered 97%. They were required to sort 600 pieces of mail an hour. To ensure that the clerks’ skills didn’t rust, they were tested from time to time to ensure they could maintain that pace.

Ralph served the US in the Postal Service for only a short time. He was studying to be a lawyer and when he passed the bar exam, the Postal Service was left far behind.

His daughter said that when she was small, her father would amuse them by reciting all the stops on his route between Ottawa and Peoria. I can hear him chanting now: Ottawa… Naplate… La Salle… Peru… Oglesby… Tonica… Lostant… Troy Grove… Mendota… Bureau… Tiskilwa… Wyanet… Buda… Bradford… Princeville… Alta… Peoria.

A Transplanted Workforce: Dayton’s Woolen Mill in 1850

May 27, 2026May 22, 2026Candace W Leave a comment

The Dayton woolen mill, shown here in its formal portrait

The 1850 census of Dayton provides a detailed snapshot of the town’s early industrial life, and it reveals a pattern that does not appear in the later county histories. Every skilled worker employed in the woolen mill that year—spinners, carders, finishers, and clothiers—came from regions with established textile traditions. None were born in Illinois, and none were drawn from the surrounding farming community.

Several workers were English, part of the long‑standing movement of textile specialists who carried technical knowledge from Yorkshire and Lancashire to American mills. Others came from New England, especially Connecticut and Massachusetts, where woolen manufacturing had been well developed for decades. Additional workers arrived from Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio, all states with earlier industrial centers than Illinois.

This pattern indicates that the Dayton mill did not grow out of local labor or local experience. It was a transplanted enterprise, staffed by people who had already worked in textile settings elsewhere. Even the mill owners, the Green family, had migrated from Licking County, Ohio in the 1830s, bringing with them the capital, skills, and connections needed to establish the business.

The county histories written later in the nineteenth century focus on the mill’s proprietors and on the township’s pioneer farmers, but they rarely mention the mill hands themselves. The census, however, preserves a different picture: in 1850, Dayton’s woolen mill operated entirely through the labor of migrants from older industrial regions. The mill was an industrial island on the prairie, shaped by people whose experience had been formed far from Illinois.

The Cannon Incident

May 20, 2026May 19, 2026Candace W Leave a comment

If you ever think politics today is dramatic, let me take you back to 1841, when a defeated President of the United States came to Dayton — for a fishing trip.

Martin Van Buren had just lost the election to William Henry Harrison, and apparently the cure for political heartbreak was ten days of rest in Ottawa with his nephew, the very dignified Judge John V. A. Hoes. (Yes, the same Hoes who later bought up half the Dayton lots without ever living here. Dayton has always attracted interesting people.)

Anyway, after a few days in Ottawa, someone had the bright idea to take the former President down to Dayton for a little fishing and fresh air. And because this was frontier Illinois, the “escort” was not a carriage or a quiet ride.

It was a procession of 150 men on horseback.

Picture it: a long line of riders, dust rising, horses snorting, the whole countryside turning out to watch. And at the head of the Dayton welcoming committee stood John Green, founder of the town, prominent Democrat, and the sort of man who would absolutely organize a crowd for a visiting President.

And then — because Dayton never missed a chance for a little spectacle — someone decided to fire a cannon.

Not a big cannon. Not a military cannon. A little cannon. A sort of “frontier noisemaker” cannon.

It was perched on a hill, ready to give the President a rousing salute.

What happened next is the reason this story has survived for 180 years.

The cannon went off. The horses panicked. And the Secretary of the Navy — James K. Paulding, a blunt, plain‑spoken man — nearly lost his mind.

His horse bolted. He started shouting. And according to the newspaper account, he threatened that if someone didn’t stop that “infernal idiot” firing the gun, he would “get down and lick him himself.”

This is, without question, the only time in American history that a Secretary of the Navy threatened to fistfight a man with a toy cannon in a town of a few hundred people.

The fishing trip, by the way, was a complete failure. Not a single fish. The locals blamed the Secretary’s swearing for scaring them off.

Dayton Homemakers’ Programs Over the Years

May 13, 2026May 12, 2026Candace W Leave a comment

Rita Poole cutting the cake at the 100th anniversary of the Dayton Homemakers

The Dayton Homemakers’ 100th anniversary celebration marked a full century of meetings, programs, and community events. Looking back through the old programs, you can see the range of activities that kept the club going year after year.

Practical Talks & Demonstration

These were the backbone of the meetings — the Homemakers prided themselves on being both cultured and useful.

“Poultry Raising and House Cleaning” — discussion at Mrs. Frank Trumbo’s
Question Box sessions — open‑floor problem solving
Corn Varieties & Seed Selection — talk by Frank Beach, president of the La Salle County Farmers’ Institute
“Country Community Life in Illinois” — lecture by Miss Mabel Carney of Normal
California Travelogue — Miss Molly Strait’s winter trips out west
Sewing Bee — practical work session at Mrs. John McGrath’s, featuring “fancy things”

These programs were half education, half community support.

Musical Programs

The Homemakers loved music — and they had a deep bench of local talent.

Instrumental

Piano solos by Miss Dwyer, Miss Barrett, Irene Barrett, Lucile Bultman, Gertrude Beach
Violin selections by Miss Charity Sage
Mandolin & piano duets by Mr. and Mrs. Louis Belrose

Vocal

Solos by Mrs. Frank Beach
Solos by Mr. Louis Chally
Solos by Miss Josephine Trumbo

Music was the social glue — and the newspapers always noted who performed.

Literary & Dramatic Features

Dayton loved a good reading.

Readings by Mrs. Frank Funk
Readings by Mrs. Fannie Tucker
Dramatic dialogue by the Misses Erickson
“Corn Conundrums” by Frank Beach (a comic highlight at the Corn Party)

These were the moments when the Homemakers showed off their flair.

Social Events & Special Programs

These were the showpieces — the events that made the Ottawa papers perk up.

The Corn Party

Held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Beach

Corn‑themed decorations
Corned beef, corn bread, popcorn
Corn games, corn riddles, corn everything
Open to both ladies and gentlemen

Fourth of July Picnic

At Henry Schmidt’s farm

Formal program
Sports
A massive dinner
A crowd large enough to impress even Ottawa

Fundraising Programs

Raffle of a sofa pillow made by members, proceeds to the school treasury

Red Cross Work (1940s)

Sewing
Knitting
War‑effort support

This was the Homemakers at their most civic‑minded.

Conclusion

The Dayton Homemakers were practical, musical, literary, dramatic, social, and charitable. They accomplished a lot in their first hundred years.

Cows, Cows, Cows

May 6, 2026May 3, 2026Candace W Leave a comment

Green farm – old barn on left

The Greens were Dayton’s cattle people. If there was a cow to be bought, a bull to be shown, or a dairy improvement to be tried, a Green was probably involved.

John Green is where the whole thing starts on paper, but the newspapers only tell part of it. When he died in 1874, the executor’s sale listed more cattle than some townships had: thoroughbred short‑horns, high‑grade cows, bulls with pedigrees. He was building something substantial.

But the person who kept that operation running was his son Isaac. Isaac had been doing the work on the home farm since he was old enough to hold a pitchfork. By the time John died, Isaac was already the one managing the herd, the breeding, the daily grind. John built the foundation; Isaac kept the whole thing moving.

Then came Isaac’s son, Lyle, who took the farm into the modern era. Lyle imported cattle from the Channel Islands, bought expensive bulls from Buffalo, and eventually won Grand Champion at the La Salle County Fair. He was serious about dairying — not just keeping cows alive, but improving them. If Isaac kept the herd going, Lyle made it shine.

After Lyle, the farm went to the care of his brother Ralph — my grandfather. Ralph kept things steady. Not flashy, not experimental, just dependable. Every farm needs someone like that, the one who holds the line between the ambitious generation and whatever comes next.

And then “whatever comes next” turned out to be Charles, who married Ralph’s daughter and inherited the cows along with the farm. He worked with them for fourteen years, which was long enough to be polite about it, but the truth is he didn’t like dairy farming. At all. So the first real chance he got, he sold the cows. That was the end of the Green cattle era.

It didn’t end in disaster or drama. It just ended because the person who had to get up at 4 am didn’t want to do that anymore. And that’s as much a part of the story as the prize bulls and the imported heifers ever were.

“A Useful School House”

April 29, 2026April 28, 2026Candace W Leave a comment

In the spring of 1895, this Dayton school was only a few years old. Dayton had gone without a school building for a year when the old school burned in November1892 and this building filled a definite need. It became the center of Dayton life, although, as shown here, that was not to everyone’s liking.

A Dayton correspondent sends us a complaint about the economical methods adopted by some of its citizens. He says they are making use of the public school building for a dancing hall and club room. He says the young men are backed up by the directors and others. The same building is used for an opera house, and that the directors and their families get free tickets for the dances and shows, but that they and their families are not very largely represented when the school is used on Sunday for Sabbath School. The correspondent is a tax payer, he claims, and does not get in under the canvas.¹

Ottawa Republican, March 21, 1895, p. 3,

A Flood Remembered

April 23, 2026Candace W Leave a comment

Clearly no camera captured this scene, but this is what it might have looked like.

The February 7,1857 flood stuck in Dayton’s memory like a marker stone — the kind of event people kept referring to for decades afterward. Not because it was picturesque or dramatic in the usual way, but because it rearranged things. It changed the shape of the town’s work, its riverbanks, and its sense of what the Fox River could do when it felt like it.

The Green family took the worst of it. The newspapers called them the “only serious sufferers,” which was probably true in terms of property loss. Their new dye house was wrecked so thoroughly it had to be rebuilt from scratch. The kilns and kettles were ruined. Six or seven feet of water stood on the lower floor of their woolen factory. And with the Fox River Feeder torn open — sixty or seventy rods of it simply gone — their mills were expected to sit idle for a month.

But what people remembered wasn’t just the Greens’ misfortune. It was the scale of the thing.

Dayton’s own bridge, only four or five years old and costing the community a full $1,000, was lifted off its abutments and carried away. And here’s the part that still shocks me: that same day, every single bridge over the Fox River from the Wisconsin line to Ottawa was washed away.

That fact tells you what the flood meant. Not just local damage, but a whole river corridor snapped in two. Travel halted. Communities cut off. A sense that the river had shown its full reach, and that human engineering — however proud or expensive — was only temporary.

No wonder people were still talking about it thirty years later. It wasn’t just a flood. It was the day the river reminded everyone who was in charge.

A Time-Stained Hoary-Headed Deed

April 15, 2026April 13, 2026Candace W Leave a comment

A few days ago O. W. Trumbo, of Dayton, left at this office a document that is somewhat of a curiosity. It is a time-stained hoary headed deed, and was drawn up June 23, 1752, being 133 years old. It is a deed for 400 acres of land given by “Cornelius Murley and Austas Murley, his wife, of Augusta county and parish of Augusta, and colony of Virginia, of ye one part, and Jacob Trumbo of ye county and parish and colony aforesaid of ye other part.” This Jacob Trumbo above referred to was the great-great-grandfather¹ of O. W. Trumbo, and the document had been among some old papers for 30 years unnoticed when Mrs. Trumbo discovered it on the 23d day of last June, exactly 132 years after the paper was executed. Mr. Trumbo brought this paper with him when he went on his visit recently to friends in Rockingham county, VA., taking in the inauguration also. As there were no records dating back half that far he could not trace it. The deed was drawn 23 years before the breaking out of the revolutionary war, when Washington was a young man, and when Virginia was governed by Robert Dinwiddie, who was appointed by the crown of England.²

Two Old Deeds
Jacob³ Trumbo, a native of Rockingham, but now and for thirty years a resident of Illinois, has a copy of a deed for Four Hundred Acres of land, lying on the North Fork of North River, in Augusta county, made by Cornelius Murley and wife to Jacob Trumbo, dated June 3rd, 1752, or 133 years ago. The document is in a fine state of preservation, and both the Murleys made their mark instead of writing their names, which looks as if the people in those days, even large property holders, were not very highly educated.⁴

The image at the top is from the recorded copy of the deed, from Deed Book 4 (1751-1752) Augusta County of the colony of Virginia. You can view the entire recorded copy here.

correction: great-grandfather
Ottawa (Illinois) Free Trader, April 4, 1885, p. 1, col. 3
correction: O. W.
Staunton (Virginia) Vindicator, April 17, 1885, p. 3, col. 3.

A Poetical Evening and a School Vacation

April 8, 2026March 26, 2026Candace W Leave a comment

Rural Happenings

Dayton, March 30. – Mr. George W. Gibson, of Rutland, who has purchased Mr. J. Read’s property on the hill, is moving into town this week. Mr. Gibson and family will be welcome additions to our town and society, and will be most acceptable and enterprising citizens.

The Tile Works commenced operations this week and are turning out a fine lot of tile. The popularity of this firm, and their wide-spread reputation for manufacturing fine drain tile, is shown by their receiving a letter of inquiry from a gentleman in Oil City, Penn. Among other orders received this week was one for 4,000 8-inch tile.

The Whittier entertainment at the school house March 18, the second of the series of “Evenings with the Poets,” by the Musical Union, was a good success. The programme passed off smoothly and in a delightful manner. Little Jimmy Ryan and Gertie Grow in a duet captured the audience, and were forced to respond to an encore. The select readings by Mr. James Green and Miss Dessie Root were read with considerable spirit and taste. The remainder of the programme, dialogues, recitations, quartets, etc., was well carried out, and every one pronounced the entertainment a very enjoyable one, and one that reflects considerably to the credit of the committee, Miss Cora Green and Mrs. C. B. Hess. The last of the series, a Lowell entertainment, will be given this Saturday evening, April 1. It is under the management of Miss Dessie Root, who has taken considerable pains in preparing a fine programme, and promises to be an enjoyable entertainment. It should be greeted with a full house.

The Schools are having a vacation this week. We understand the two schools are to be continued under the present competent instructors, and we hope the following summer will witness the erection of a new school building. It is something that is much needed, and as the railroad pays over one-half the school tax, the district is abundantly able to build one. Patrons of the school will do well to consider the matter, and if brought to a vote to cast their ballots intelligently.

The board of town auditors met at the town clerk’s office last Monday to audit the accounts of the town.

Mr. Noah Dunavan has departed for Texas, where he will make his future home.

Occasional¹

Ottawa (Illinois) Free Trader, April 1, 1882, p. 8, col. 1

A Potentially Serious April Fool’s Prank

April 1, 2026March 21, 2026Candace W 1 Comment

PULLED GUN TO FOOL GIRL
April Fool Joke Might Have Had Serious Termination

As the result of being the victim of an April fool prank, 14-year-old Cora Tanner, of Dayton township, is nursing a badly injured limb containing the contents of a 22-calibre revolver, which was shot into her by a companion this morning shortly after 9 o’clock at her home in that village.

William Luce, a cousin of the injured girl, had been planning an April fool joke, and he with another companion fixed it up to scare her with a 22-calibre revolver they had run across. Going into the room the supposedly harmless gun was pointed at the girl, who naturally felt more or less uneasy at its presence. With a laugh the boy told her it was not loaded, then pulled the trigger.

The bullet entered the left limb a short distance above the knee and is still imbedded in her flesh. She was brought to this city and Dr. Hathaway probed for the missile, but was unable to find it. In a few days the X-ray will be used to determine the location of the bullet and in all probability it will be extricated.

This is probably the last April fool joke of that kind the young man will ever play again. It is to be considered fortunate that the weapon was not pointed at a more vital spot, for without a doubt the “joke” would have had a much more serious termination.

Miss Tanner was taken back to her home, where she is resting fairly comfortable this afternoon.¹

Ottawa (Illinois) Free Trader, 5 Apr 1907, p16, col 2

Some Headlines are Just Wrong

March 25, 2026March 19, 2026Candace W Leave a comment

The Dayton friends and neighbors of Joseph Barends must have been surprised to read this. They would have recognized him in the facts given, but not by that name.

JOHN BARENDS DEAD
Well Known Dayton Resident Passed Away Suddenly

HEART TROUBLE THE CAUSE
Deceased was a Resident of Dayton for Half a Century – Was a Charter Member of Local Lodge of Odd Fellows – Funeral on Sunday

Friday at 2 o’clock a. m. John Barends, an old and highly respected resident of Dayton, passed away suddenly, death being due to organic heart trouble. For several years Mr. Barends has been in poor health, and his death, though coming rather suddenly, comes as a shock to his large circle of friends and acquaintances.

Mr. Barends has been a resident of Dayton for over half a century, coming to that village in 1858. He was born in Holland, September 18, 1837, and came to the United States when only 15 years of age, locating in New York City.

Thursday evening, when Mr. Barends retired, he apparently enjoyed his usual health, and not until about 1:30 did the attack come upon him, which, a half hour later, was followed by death. Feeling ill, Mr. Barends called several members of the family but no help could be rendered him, death claiming him shortly after their arrival.

Mr. Barends was a well known resident of Dayton, and enjoyed a large acquaintanceship and was highly esteemed. He was a charter member of the local Odd Fellows’ lodge and was also a member of the local camp of Modern Woodmen of America. He leaves, besides his wife, four daughters — Mrs. W. S. Green, of Joliet, Mrs. E. C. McClary and Misses Etta and June Berends, of Dayton — and one son, William Barends, of this city.

The funeral took place Sunday afternoon from his late home on Dayton road, at 2 o’clock.¹

More information about Joseph Barends can be found in this biography.

Ottawa (Illinois) Republican Times, July 9, 1908, p. 5.

Dayton and the Greens

John Green and the history of Dayton, La Salle County, Illinois