Early History of Manhattan Township
Present day Manhattan Township was bisected by an old Native American trail running from the Des Plaines to the Kankakee Rivers, which roughly followed the route of today’s U.S. Route 52. In 1830s and 1840s, the area was familiarly known as Five Mile Grove after the only sizable stand of timber in the township, located at Sections 7 and 8 of Manhattan Township. This location was so named because it was about five miles south of the Hickory Creek settlement in New Lenox. The small stream flowing through the grove was named Jackson Creek at the suggestion of Wesley Jenkins of North Carolina, who settled in Jackson Township in 1832.
In 1850, the Township Organization Act was passed in Illinois and first townships were formed. Manhattan area then had only ten voters (240 persons total), not enough to form a township (25 voters were needed), so initially, Manhattan and Green Garden area joined together into what became Trenton Township. By 1852, the population had increased enough to separate the joint township, and the name Manhattan was given to the western part of the former Trenton Township. The name “Manhattan” was adopted at suggestion of the fist supervisor, John Young, after his former home in New York. First official Manhattan Township meeting was held on April 5, 1853.
Much of the early township was originally settled by English farmers from the east, especially New York State. Soon, Irish and German immigrants followed. Intensive agricultural development and settlement began in the late 1840s and 1850s. The prairie was considered good farmland but the settlement was slow to grow mostly due to limited sources of timber and shortage of iron to forge walking plows. The first settler of the second wave of pioneers was Clark Baker (1847), followed by Brian Gorivan and Martin Bergan of Ireland (1848) and John Young and Samuel Bowen (1849).
Early days of Trenton Township were busy with development. Up until then, there were no roads in the area to speak of. For goods and post office matters, settlers had to go to Joliet; and to get there, simply put, one would just drive their horse in the direction they thought Joliet to be, over and across the prairie. Times were hard and cattle was the main source of living.
In about 1850, Trenton Township supervisors voted to levy $100 to defray the cost of laying the “public highway” (roughly from Round Barn Farm to Wilton Center) and another $100 was designated to lay the “Chicago Road” which was branched off State Street (Monee-Manhattan Road). It was at this branch that the first building in Manhattan was constructed by Willam Trask, the blacksmith. At the time, taxes of forty cents per acre were levied towards road work and each able-bodied man had to put in two days of free labor working on the road projects. This was called the “poll tax.” The first road bridges over Jackson Creek and Prairie Creek were built in 1855.
Ordinances passed during Trenton Township days were also enforced in the new Manhattan Township. Some of such ordinances are described in the following paragraph.
During the early 1850s, area was scarcely settled and livestock roamed freely. Horses, cows and pigs were branded and let run free throughout the entire season, then rounded up in fall. Quickly, hogs running wild became a pest to farmers and hunters. An ordinance was passed whereby no hogs were to run large at any time of the year. Any person allowing their hogs to run wild was fined, without legal process. Funds raised from these fines were to be used in improving roads and bridges. No goats and sheep could run large unless attended by a shepherd. Any damage by these animals was considered a liability to the owner. The town assessor would appraise any livestock-caused damage and for his services, he was to be paid fifty cents plus six cents for each mile of unnecessary travel from his place of residence. Another ordinance was passed in Trenton, ordering the erection of animal pounds to be used for stray hogs, sheep and goats where the animals were “jailed” until the fine money was furnished by the owner. Additionally, in 1852 an ordinance against bulls running large was passed with a penalty of one dollar and fifty cents for each offense.
Martin Bergan, one of the original pioneers, was the tax collector for Trenton Township and continued as Manhattan Township collector for thirty years. In an early memory, his son, Martin Bergan, Jr., remembers that in 1852, his dad collected taxes from only nine tax payers located in the two townships. He would travel by oxcart or by foot, and Mr. Bergan, Sr. preferred walking. He had to travel 14 miles one way to collect less that $3 from one of his tax payers. For his services, he was compensated $3.60.
One of the first ordinances passed after the formation of Manhattan Township was the Fence Law. Fences were to be built of wood, stone or wire, of sufficient material and well put up, with a full four feet and three inches in height and lower bar not more than two feet six inches from the ground and not more than eight feet between the rails or pickets… Such would be deemed a good and lawful fence. Consequently, an ordinance was passed whereby any livestock was allowed to roam free outside of such fenced-in premises as described above. If roaming stock did damage to places protected by fences, damages were to be paid to the suffering party. “Fence viewers” were to assess the damages. Livestock that was at fault was driven to aforementioned animal pound until damages were paid or security for same given.
In 1855, Township was divided into 8 school districts, based on the premise that no child should travel more than 2 miles to get to school. Each district had a roughly 20’x30’ one-room schoolhouse, heated by a wood stove. Taxes were established to upkeep the schools.
By 1859, the Township was divided into seven road districts and overseers for each district elected. These men were to oversee the work done on roads and bridges by farmers paying out the road tax. Each overseer was provided with a road scraper. Most of the township records until 1876 consist of page after page of road and bridge building.
During the Civil War, at least twenty-six Manhattan residents served in the U. S. Army. Through the 1860s, the population of the township continued to grow, with strong demand for wheat and corn during the war years. In the late 1860s, a railway to run from Decatur to Chicago passing Manhattan Township was proposed, but plans for the line were abandoned after the 1871 Chicago Fire.
These were the very early days of our Township, only the beginnings of carving a community out of rolling prairie. Things really took off once the first trains started passing through here in the summer of 1880, but that is another story for another time.
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Material in this article:
Compilations by Florence Lynk (dated 1956), Wally Gustafson (dated 1985), MTHS archives.
Newspaper article by Forrest Lichtenwalter. Likely a Manhattan paper, name and date unknown (early 1900s). MTHS archives.
Will County Rural Historic Structural Survey, Manhattan Township. Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc.
