History of Whiteside County, Illinois - From Its First Settlement to the Present Time #267379

History has an office to perform in the present by truly recording the events of the past, and that Whiteside County has made a history worthy of preservation, all admit. True, as measured by the lapse of years, the County is yet in its infancy, but its marvelous development from a wilderness, inhabited only by tbe savage, to its present "proud estate," is a fitting subject for the chronicler; and especially is it proper that the brave and earnest men and women who dared the perils of field and flood, savage alarums, poverty and hunger, should have their works preserved in printed form. The commonwealth they founded and developed will be their monument, but their trials and triumphs is the province o! the historian to detail.<br><br>The task of preparing the History of Whiteside County was undertaken after mature deliberation, with a full sense of its importance, and a knowledge that such a work is demanded. A true history can only be written from "actual facts." The time is opportune, as the pioneers are rapidly passing away, and the few lips yet remaining to tell the story of the "times that tried men's souls" will soon be stilled by the Destroyer of young and old. The difficulties to be overcome in the preparation of the work were fully considered, but have proven even more formidable than anticipated. Forty years has warped the memories of the staunchest of the "Old Settlers"; fire, the ravages of time, and carelessness, have destroyed many of the records kept in neighboring counties of the very earliest events that occurred in Whiteside before its organization, or when attached to other counties for judicial purposes. The early records of tbe County proper are but fragmentary, the details of the offices at that time being kept in a skeleton manner, or "carried under the office-holder's hat" — doubtless in those days all that was absolutely necessary.<br><br>The archives of the State, at Springfield, were thoroughly examined, and the meagre record of early Whiteside secured; the old books of the counties to which Whiteside was attached previous to its organization, were investigated, and all pertinent matter that had escaped fire and loss, carefully transcribed; the old files of the newspapers of the County have been consulted for historical facts; the official books of the different cities, towns, villages, and townships, have also been examined, and all of general interest embodied in the work; the early records of churches, incorporations, and benevolent and other societies were looked through, and many valuable items of history secured. Either myself or assistants have penetrated every township in the County, and interviewed scores of old settlers, and gleaned many facts and incidents from them.