O Pioneers: Early European Settlers in West Lake Forest

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O Pioneers: Early European Settlers in West Lake Forest

The James and Ellen McIntyre house, located near Riverwoods and Everett Road in Vernon Twp. Image courtesy of Bess Bower Dunn Museums.

Map of Lake County, 1861. For reference, the point where the four townships come together (Libertyville in yellow, Vernon in blue, Deerfield in pink, and Shields in green) is located on Rte. 60 just west of Academy Road. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

Map of Lake County, 1861. For reference, the point where the four townships come together (Libertyville in yellow, Vernon in blue, Deerfield in pink, and Shields in green) is located on Rte. 60 just west of Academy Road. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

Image courtesy Bess Bower Dunn Museum.

Image courtesy Bess Bower Dunn Museum.

Image courtesy of Bess Bower Dunn Museum.

Image courtesy of Bess Bower Dunn Museum.

The first pioneers to settle in west Lake Forest were mostly Irish immigrants. Many had come to Illinois to work on the Illinois & Michigan Canal. Under the terms of the Treaty of Chicago, by 1836 Native Americans had largely been forced to vacate the area. Soon the new U.S. Government land in Lake County was surveyed and made available for purchase.Traveling up the Green Bay Trail from Chicago, or down from Little Fort (Waukegan), pioneers found the broad prairie to the west much more hospitable for settlement and farming than the densely forested, ravine-crossed terrain along the lake. Most chose to make their homesteads in west Lake Forest, leaving east Lake Forest largely undeveloped for over twenty years.Take a look at this section of an 1861 map of Lake County below. Can you find the homesteads of some of west Lake Forest's first pioneers? Why do some of these names sound familiar to us today?Michael Meehan, 1835James Fagan, 1836John Doyle, 1840Patrick Melody, 1840Michael Yore, 1843James and Dennis Lancaster, 1844John Kennedy, 1844John Conway, 1850Thomas Redmond, 1850
West Lake Forest's pioneers faced considerable challenges in establishing their farms. The prairie sod was tough, requiring multiple teams of oxen to plow so the wheat, flax seed, oats or corn could be planted. Later farmers raised sheep and stock; many, like the Conways, turned to dairying. Wood was chopped and used for nearly everything: housing, fuel, marking off property, penning in animals – and to sell at market.Isolated a day's journey from town and a mile or more from the nearest neighbor, settlers endured the hazards of their new terrain. Wolves presented a threat to both sheep and citizens – John Doyle's children recalled a pack surrounding their cabin one scary night. In the early days, few had horses, so trips to Chicago or Little Fort for supplies were often made on foot. A big snow, such as the long winter of 1842, could cut the pioneers off almost entirely.
By the 1850s, with the development of mills in the area, frame homes like the Lancaster farmhouse (below) began to replace the settlers' log cabins. Many of the old log structures were well-built, and often retained as outbuildings, like on the Patrick Dawson property, seen above in 1918.
Ann Devon Redmond, pictured in 1918 at age 80. The daughter of Irish immigrants Ann Fagan and Michael Devon, she was thought to be the first European-American child born in Deerfield Twp. in 1838.
Martin Melody and his sister Ellen Doyle in 1918. Their father Patrick settled near the intersection of Waukegan and Rte. 60 in 1841. Melody Road takes its name from their family.