Local Stories
Churchill Twins
Christiana (left) and her twin sister, Lurania, were born to Winslow and Mercy Churchill in upstate New York in 1802. In 1834, they were members of the Churchill clan that were the first settlers in what later became the town of Glen Ellyn. This photo was taken on Feb. 15, 1893, their 91st birthday. At the time, they were thought to be the oldest twins in the world.
“I sat in this rocking chair, up in the wagon, all those long and tedious weeks,” said Lurania of the arduous journey, patting the straight-back rush-bottom rocker on which she sat. Lurania was accompanied on the trip by her husband John D. Ackerman and their three children. Christiana, whose first husband had passed away 11 months after their marriage, came to Illinois with her son Erastus Ketchum. (“‘Old Ketch’: a Colorful Character in Glen Ellyn History,” page 6)
The two women, memories still intact, talked about some of the hardships of growing up in the early 1800s. Christiana recalled how she walked to school barefoot as an 8-year-old child, with just stockings to cover her feet, because the traveling shoemaker had yet to pay a visit to town. “We had very little schooling, the schools being poor, and the nearest one two miles away,” she said. Soon after arriving here, Lurania and her husband allowed school classes to be conducted in their home while the first log schoolhouse was being built.
After coming to Illinois, the twin sisters lived on adjoining farms near the East Branch of the DuPage River for 50 years. However, they were described as “unalike in disposition” and “opposites in the matter of dress.” One fashion trend Christiana particularly despised was the hoop skirt. “Hoops!” she said with contempt. “Yes, I wore them–I was such a fool. I’ve been reading in the papers about the legislature passing a law against the wearing of them, and I’m glad of it.”
Lurania passed away a month after the birthday celebration, but Christiana lived to the age of 97 (dying in 1899) and was still active at 94. The average life expectancy of people born in the United States in 1850 was 39, according to the earliest data available from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Great Fire of 1891
The summer of 1891 in Glen Ellyn was especially hot and dry. The drought persisted into the autumn.
John Elick, a local baker, had the job of lighting the kerosene street lamps along Main Street. On the evening of November 6, 1891, as Elick lit the lamp in front of his bakery, it slipped from his grasp and crashed onto the wooden sidewalk. Within seconds the blaze was beyond what could be smothered, and quickly spread to Elick’s own wood-frame store front.
An alarm was sounded, but there was little the townspeople could do. In those days, Glen Ellyn had no fire company. So, a rider was dispatched to Wheaton two miles away, and the Wheaton Hook and Ladder Company responded as fast as horses could pull the equipment. By the time they arrived, the fire was completely out of control. Furthermore, Glen Ellyn had no municipal water system to supply water for fighting the fire.
The fire started on the west side of Main Street, north of Crescent Boulevard. As was the case with the Great Chicago Fire, strong southerly winds pushed the fire north–toward Pennsylvania Avenue. Boyd Brothers Hardware Store was the next victim, followed by George M.H. Wagner's office, the drugstore of W.S. Ryder, the grocery store of John Mertz, and the W.H. Myers Meat Market. The fire burned all night until it had consumed every building on the west side of Main except for one just south of where the fire started.
Practically everyone in town turned out to help, but their efforts were limited to removing merchandise and fixtures from the buildings in the path of the blaze. While the buildings on the east side of Main were spared destruction, several suffered blistered paint and charred wood.
The Glen Ellyn fire of 1891 didn’t make headlines around the country, but proportionally it destroyed as large a portion of this community as the Chicago fire did. And, like Chicago, Glen Ellyn immediately set about to replace the wood buildings with masonry structures, many of which still stand today.
Wooden Sidewalks
Local historian Ada Douglas Harmon once described the early wooden sidewalks in Glen Ellyn as a “…first-class rendezvous for snakes. When we walked along at night, the snakes would stick their heads up through the cracks and wiggle under our feet.”
The wooden sidewalks along Main Street in the downtown area were much higher than elsewhere in town–as much as three to four feet above the street level–allowing shoppers to step directly to them from their horse-drawn carriages and high-wheeled buggies.
Unfortunately, these sidewalks weren’t always kept in the best repair by the village. In 1893, a man came to Glen Ellyn to transact some business. He fell through the sidewalk, broke his leg and sued the village for $500. He won, and village officials were forced to pay, which was quite the joke because they were notorious for being cautious in money matters. It was reported that after this incident, the sidewalks were kept in better repair.
Clarence Curtis, grandson of Amos Churchill (one of the original settlers here), told the following story: “One Sunday we were out for a ride when a heavy rain came up. Grandpa Churchill had a lumber business on Crescent just west of Main Street. We stopped in his barn, waiting for the rain to stop. Northeast of the barn was the William Wagner store facing on Main. The wooden sidewalk in front of the store was level with the entrance and was set on posts several feet high.
“My dad noticed some boys going under the walk in front of the store, so he sent for Uncle Joe Clark [the town constable]. Dad knew there had been thefts from the store. Mr. Wagner and Uncle Joe and my dad went into the store. They found one boy hiding under a counter. Mother and I saw another boy come out and run away. I knew who he was, and when he was caught he confessed. There were quite a few boys involved. They had a cave in Honeysuckle Hill, where they were taking their loot and having a good time.”
Today, the building that housed the William Wagner Grocery Store on Main is long gone, while Glenbard West High School sits atop Honeysuckle Hill. Concrete sidewalks replaced the wooden ones in 1906.
Isaac Bradford- Churchill Farm
People often ask if any members of the original Churchill family still live in the Glen Ellyn area. The answer is yes, and some of them are living in the house shown in this picture which is located on Swift Road just south of North Avenue.
The village was called Danby around 1851 to 1874. The town itself had only a few hundred residents, and many of its businesses served the farmers whose lands surrounded the town. Life was simpler, but probably not slower. There were too many things that needed to be done–and for teenagers, too many fun things begging to be done.
Take corn husking for example. Sounds pretty tedious. But if you were a young man among a group of teenagers at a Saturday afternoon corn husking bee, and if you happened to come across a red ear of corn, tedium became titillation. The rule was: “he who finds a red ear gets to kiss the girl of his choosing.” According to recollections, red ears were quite rare. But after the first one was discovered, others (or possibly the same ear) seemed to pop up pretty frequently until all the girls had been kissed. Then it was time to move from the chilly barn to the warm farmhouse for a glass of cider and pumpkin pie.
Another favorite pastime was ice skating. But it wasn’t on Lake Ellyn in those days, because that lake didn’t exist until 1889 when a creek was dammed to create it. The creek that later fed Lake Ellyn actually ran through the downtown area (it still does, but it’s buried in storm sewer pipes), through what is now Lake Ellyn, and on to the East Branch of the DuPage River. Youngsters would strap on their skates in downtown Danby and then glide all the way to Lisle and back on the DuPage River.
This, of course, was after they had done their “chores” at home, and sometimes before heading to a barn dance for the evening.
Philo and his Civil War Buddies
Philo Stacy (shown here the 5th person from the right), was the son of Moses and Joann Stacy who built Stacy’s Tavern in 1846. Philo fought in the Civil War and hosted a number of reunions for his colleagues. This one, in 1913, appears to be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg where Marcellus Ephram Jones, a Danby resident, reportedly fired the first shot in that epic battle.
Danby sent 70 young men (more than 20 percent of its population) off to fight in the Civil War. Most of them joined the 8th Illinois Cavalry, a regiment that saw action in several major Civil War battles. For many of them it would have been the first time they had traveled more than 25 miles from home. They went off to war as boys; those who survived returned as men, wiser about the ways of the world.
Before the war, Danby had been a sleepy farm town; after the war, the reputation became rowdy. Barn dances would be visited by Danby boys, known for drinking and flirting with girls. Soon they would be clearing the dance floor with their fists when boyfriends objected. During this period, deservedly or not, Danby became known for its saloons and houses of ill repute.
In his Reminiscences, Mr. Lawrence C. Cooper, a lawyer and town historian, tells the story of riding home one evening when he saw the conductor confront a very inebriated passenger. In an effort to collect the right fare, the conductor repeatedly asked the passenger where he was headed. The drunk finally replied, “I’m going to hell.” To which the conductor replied, “Then I’ll put you off at Danby. That’s about as close as we come.”
In an apparent effort to improve the image of the town, the village changed its post office designation to Prospect Park in 1874, and formally incorporated under that name in 1882. The town’s reputation began to improve after that, but it may not have had as much to do with the name change as with the aging of those rowdy boys from Danby.
Glen Ellyn History
Early Settlers
Alonzo Ackerman, son of John and Luriana Ackerman
Mercy Dodge Churchill Winslow’s wife
Settlers to northern Illinois came mainly from New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. There were two main routes from the east — the Great Lakes and overland. When the Erie Canal was finished in 1825, it offered an easier route through the Great Lakes.
The Preemption Act of 1820 provided for a claim process whereby the land was first pre-empted (or claimed) by an individual. The settler would hold the land until it was surveyed, at which time he was to pay a specified cost per acre of land and the deed was recorded.
Mercy Dodge Churchill Winslow’s wife
Alonzo Ackerman, son of John and Luriana Ackerman
Mercy Dodge Churchill Winslow’s wife
The Babcock brothers, Ralph, Anson, and Morgan, took up claims to a large wooded area in 1833. The following year, Deacon Winslow Churchill and his family of twenty-eight members arrived from New York. They held their claim until it was surveyed in 1840 and then paid $1.25 per acre.
Churchill cabin, 1834
Alonzo Ackerman, son of John and Luriana Ackerman
Alonzo Ackerman, son of John and Luriana Ackerman
John Ackerman married Lurania Churchill and they staked a claim west of the DuPage River. David Christian married Christiana Churchill, Lurania’s twin sister. They settled on the northeast corner of present-day St. Charles Road and Main Street.
Alonzo Ackerman, son of John and Luriana Ackerman
Alonzo Ackerman, son of John and Luriana Ackerman
Alonzo Ackerman, son of John and Luriana Ackerman
Moses Stacy and family arrived in 1835 from Massachusetts. When William Dodge came with his family, he bought a claim from the Babcock brothers. Others arriving that year included A. S. Janes, Milo Meacham, Horace Barnes, Royal Walker, and the Reverend James McChesney.
How many names has Glen Ellyn had?
The most common answer is seven, although there is some disagreement about what the seven names should be. Here is the chronology of what we know.
1834: Babcock's Grove -- When the first settlers arrived here, this area is actually described not as a town but as a large tract of land staked out by the Babcock brothers in 1833 (which included much of what today is Lombard).
1835: Fish's Corners -- Named for Daniel Fish who had a cabin near where three trails converged. Today, the trails are known as St. Charles Road, Geneva Road and Main Street. The little community was also called DuPage Center because of its location at the center of DuPage County.
1846: Stacy's Corners -- This name came into common usage when Moses and Joann Stacy built a popular stage coach inn at the intersection with that same name, now Geneva Road and North Main Street.
1850: Newton Station -- This actually was the name for a new community that grew up a mile south of Stacy's Corners after the railroad came through that area -- what is today downtown Glen Ellyn.
1851: Danby -- This was the name given Newton Station by the new postmaster who had come from Danby, Vermont. Marcellus Jones, who is credited with firing the first shot at the Battle of Gettysburg, listed Danby as his hometown.
1874: Prospect Park -- Danby's name was changed to Prospect Park because the Village fathers thought it would improve the image of the town. (Danby had quite the reputation at that time.) Stacy's Corners and Prospect Park both grew and gradually merged.
1894: Glen Ellyn -- The town adopted this name after Lake Glen Ellyn was built by Thomas E. Hill and the town became a resort community. "Ellyn" is the Welsh spelling of Ellen, the name of Hill's wife, seen in the photo above.
Settlers to northern Illinois came mainly from New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. There were two main routes from the east — the Great Lakes and overland. When the Erie Canal was finished in 1825, it offered an easier route through the Great Lakes.
The Preemption Act of 1820 provided for a claim process whereby the land was first pre-empted (or claimed) by an individual. The settler would hold the land until it was surveyed, at which time he was to pay a specified cost per acre of land and the deed was recorded.