The War Years - at Home
During the war years there were many changes occurring at home. In the Fairview community, as more settlers joined the first pioneers, the wide open prairie lands received many people, some moved on, but many stayed to make a home near the Cropsey ridge. The people mentioned below are some of those who arrived then or were active in developing the community.
A J. Cropsey had been elected to the state legislature in November 1860. He took office in 1861. He enrolled in the army at Pontiac on September 8, 1862, so he did not complete his term.
George M. Thomas, a native of Vermont, came to Belle Prairie and settled near the ridge in Cropsey Township. He had been in Will County for eight years.
Charles Westervelt came from Ohio in 1860, and settled in Belle Prairie Township.
William Stackpole, whose land was six miles south of Fairview and south of the Mackinaw River, met financial reverses and sold his land to Dr. Sabin. The Stackpole family moved into Fairbury where he engaged in the real estate business. He also continued inventing dredging systems to help keep the Mississippi River and other rivers open to navigation. During his lifetime he made and lost three fortunes. His widow and surviving daughter lived in poverty in Fairbury during their last years.
Mahala Stoddard Straight returned to the farm in Cropsey Twp., next to her father’s home, after her husband, A. A. Straight, died in September 1862. Rufus C. Straight sold his farm in Cropsey Twp., and bought land west of Fairbury. He did well and later started a tile factory.
David S. Crum had been left with three children when his wife died in 1860. In 1862, he married Mrs. Mary Morgan.
Aaron Putnam moved to Belle Prairie Twp., in 1863. He left New York in 1854, and had lived in Kendall County for over eight years. The Putnams had twelve children, but eight were living in 1879. Henry, born in 1845, had died in the war - date and place unknown. George, born in 1847, died in the army in 1865.2
John Austin, who had been renting land near David Crum, bought 80 acres south of the Fairview school in Cropsey Twp. He and his large family moved there.
Christian Willhour died in 1862, and was buried in Fairview Cemetery. In 1863 Arthur Kellogg and Lafayette Loar, three years old, were buried there.3
Benjamin Walton started a mill in Fairbury and was buying and grinding grain. John Loar, who had come from Pennsylvania, lived near Walton; soon Benjamin Walton began selling off some of his tracts of land. In addition to the Walton pasture, he had also bought the school section (sec. 16) from the school trustees.
For a number of years the Fairview schoolhouse had been used for the church services of the Methodist Episcopal church. In February 1864, a committee was selected, consisting of D. S. Crum, Benjamin Walton, and S. P. Alford, for the purpose of building a church. The church was completed two months after the end of the Civil War. Chapter six provides more details of the history of Fairview Church.
1 Alma Lewis James, Stuffed Clubs and Antimacassars (Fairbury, IL: Corn Belt Printing Co., 1967), pp. 206, 214, 219, 224-225.
2 LeBaron, 1878. op.eit., pp. 791-792.
3 Fairview Cemetery tombstone inscriptions.